Death Toll May Far Exceed 150 As Russian Hostage Crisis Ends
Ten Arabs Are Among 20 Militants Killed
Associated Press
September 3, 2004 5:35 p.m.
BESLAN, Russia -- Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. Ninety-five bodies have been identified, but one official said the death toll could far exceed 150.
The hostage-takers, who had demanded independence for Chechnya, fled the assault, took refuge in a nearby house and a basement in the school compound and traded fire with security forces. After about 12 hours, the Russian government said resistance had ended, though four others were still being sought. Twenty militants were killed, including 10 Arabs, officials said.
There were reports of at least 100 dead in the school gym. Lines of dead children and adults could be seen lying on stretchers, covered with white sheets. Grieving parents and loved ones knelt beside the dead.
Bodies of children also were laid out under a grove of trees near a hospital awaiting identification. Nearby anxious crowds gathered around lists of injured posted on the walls of the hospital buildings.
Officials at the crisis headquarters said 95 victims have been identified so far, and Valery Andreyev, the regional Federal Security Service chief, said 556 people were hospitalized, including 332 children. Emergency Situations Ministry officials put the number of hospitalized at 646 -- 227 of them children.
Officials said security forces hadn't planned to assault the school, where the militants had been holding hostages -- up to 1,500 of them, according to one freed captive -- in the gymnasium since Wednesday morning. But the troops were forced to act when the militants set off explosions and began shooting Friday afternoon, officials said.
A police explosives expert told Russia's NTV station that the commandos stormed the building after bombs wired to basketball hoops exploded in the gymnasium. A captive who escaped the school told NTV that a suicide bomber blew herself up in the gym.
Troops were engaged in "fierce fighting" for hours with militants, who still held some hostages, Mr. Andreyev said. Three militants reportedly barricaded themselves in the basement.
Soon after nightfall, a large explosion issued from the school. Later, officials at the crisis operations center said resistance was over. They said four militants remained at large, but it wasn't clear if they held any more hostages.
Among the 20 slain militants were 10 Arabs, Mr. Andreyev said. The Arab presence would support President Vladimir Putin's contention that al Qaeda terrorists were involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been battling Russian forces in a brutal war of independence on and off since the early 1990s.
On the campaign trail in Wisconsin, President Bush said the hostage siege was "another grim reminder" of the lengths to which terrorists will go.
A hostage who escaped told Associated Press Television News that the militants numbered 28, including women wearing camouflage uniforms. The hostage, who identified himself only as Teimuraz, said the militants began wiring the school with explosives as soon as they took control. He said they had placed bombs on both basketball hoops in the gym.
The bomb expert also said the gym had been rigged with explosives packed in plastic bottles strung up around the room on a cord and stuffed with metal objects.
The militants stormed the school in Beslan Wednesday morning and kept the hundreds of children along with parents who had been bringing them for the first day of school and other adults in the sweltering gymnasium, refusing to allow deliveries of food and water.
"They didn't let me go to the toilet for three days, not once. They never let me drink or go to the toilet," Teimuraz told APTN.
Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in negotiations with the militants before the explosions and assault Friday, called them "very cruel people ... a ruthless enemy."
"I talked with them many times on my cellphone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request," Mr. Roshal said.
On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children.
The chaotic climax to the standoff began around 1 p.m. local time Friday, when explosions collapsed part of the school roof and gunfire erupted from inside the building. Security forces moved in.
Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Mr. Putin's top aide on Chechnya, said security forces didn't plan to storm the building, but were prompted to move by the first explosions. Witnesses said the militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and then began to escape themselves.
Russian forces had held back, perhaps remembering the deadly outcome two years ago when security troops used nerve gas before storming a Moscow theater where Chechen terrorists had taken about 800 hostages. The nerve gas debilitated the captors but also was the cause of most of the 129 hostage deaths.
As the captives escaped the school, residents and troops ran through the streets, and the wounded were carried off on stretchers. An AP reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way."
Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children -- some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood -- to a first-aid station set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted. The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were naked or only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium.
"I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all right. It's all right."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the hostage-taking "barbaric" and "despicable…. The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism."
North Ossetia's president, Alexander Dzasokhov, said Friday the militants had demanded independence for Chechnya, the first official word connecting the hostage-taking to the conflict that has fueled Russia's worst terror attacks.
The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm it, but all indications suggested the explosions began before the assault.
The hostage-takers' identities were murky. Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence.
Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny republic.
The school seizure came a day after a suspected Chechen suicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow subway station, killing nine people, and just over a week after 90 people died in two nearly simultaneous plane crashes that are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press
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