Eyewitness Reports from Beslan

Novaya Gazeta ^ | October 7th, 2004 | Elena MILASHINA

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Original Title:
Eyewitnesses: 'The roof caught fire when they began shooting shells at it'

       
       The last few days - soon after Rostov's 124th laboratory began to identify the remains - there have been more teacher funerals. They had not been identified by relatives after the storming of the school. Only one teacher was buried in an open coffin.
       "Instead of the body of Tarkan Gubuliyevich Sabanov, they buried a boot. The boot was the only thing that remained in one piece. It wasn't a 'storm'. There were only tanks," said Lyudmila Kokova, elementary principal at Beslan school number one.
       There were tanks. The hostages which they liberated said: 'They fired on the school so that the floor shook like an earthquake'.
       Policemen who chased people from around the school said that there were no reasonable ideas coming from the operational headquarters. No leadership. Later there was but one order - get people away from the school, enlarge the perimeter. On the evening of September 2nd, tanks and armored vehicles pulled up to the school. It was understood: There would be a 'storm'.
       Opposite the school, along Komintern street, from the direction of the railroad, came two tanks. There were also BTRs, a BMP, 'Bumblebee' flamethrowers, and helicopters which descended to the level of the second floor and fired machineguns through the class and cafeteria windows. Children and adults tell how the helicopters fired at the roof of the gymnasium, and how it started on fire.
        "After the explosions there was no fire in the gym. The height of the gymnasium walls was about six meters. The glass was blown out. The walls were damaged. There were a lot of bodies along the walls. But the roof remained whole," asserted Marina Karkuzashvili. All of the Karkuzashvilis were hostages: Marina, her grandmother, her sister Lora, three of Marina's children, as well as two of Lora's, were there. "The roof caught fire when they began shooting shells at it. They exploded," and suddenly there was lots of fire. The plastic panels on the ceiling quickly became ablaze, and burning flakes fell on the people. People lit up like torches.
       Marina was interrupted by children and a mass of details and impressions are added in the Ossetian language. These children, perhaps, are too small to believe. But can they really understand the operation of the 'Bumblebee' flamethrower? But the next day, on the program 'News of the Week', the announcer calmly and in detail confirmed the underage hostages statements. It was emphasized that the flamethrowers were only used against the terrorists, that is, selectively, 'pin-point'. It became clear, however, that the authors of the television program did not understand the operating principle of the 'Bumblebee', either.
       "Lora died right before my eyes. The rebels drove us to the second floor, into the cafeteria. A few women and children were forced to climb up on the window-sills and wave white school aprons and blouses. And shout: 'Don't shoot at us!'. My sister Lora stood at one window, with my daughter Diana. And they were yelling. But who could hear them? Lora kind of knocked my Diana to the floor. Another woman fainted. The rest, including Lora, they shot."
       Marina confidently asserts that it was our side who shot them down. Physicians also confirm that the wounds were in the chest, and not in the back.
       "Perhaps these were stray bullets?" I asked Marina.
       "They were not bullets. A bullet, just a hole. But my Lora had craters in her body, a chunk of her hip was torn away."
       There were about 1300 hostages in the school. The number killed today stands at more than 400. Every third hostage died.
       It was a valuable military operation.
       Because the army 'pissed on' the terrorists.
       And in Chechnya. And in Beslan.
       
       Elena MILASHINA, our special correspondent, Beslan
       07.10.2004

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Novaya Gazeta has historically run articles on Russian atrocities in Chechnya (yawn), as well as a very scathing critique of the Dubrovka theater hostage affair.

Grain of salt, perhaps.

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Also from Novaya Gazeta:

How they stormed the school

There is more and more evidence that, from the very beginning, there was no special operation for freeing the hostages prepared, but a combat operation to destroy rebels at all costs. According to eyewitness accounts (confirmed by Russian television), the spetsnaz used the rocket incendiary 'Bumblebee'
       

    
       Housings of grenade launchers, disturbingly similar to 'Bumblebee'. Found on a roof opposite the school. Apparantly fire was conducted from here onto the hostage-filled school, using shells that cause a massive explosion. Perhaps this is why there are so many 'missing without a trace'.
       
       Data:
       Incendiary rocket launcher 'Bumblebee', single-use:
       Sighting range - to 600 meters; minimum range - 20 meters; weight - 12 kg; length - 920 mm; caliber - 93 mm.
       A gunpowder ejection charge shoots from a sealed barrel-container a capsule containing a highly combustible liquid. Firing can be conducted from an area of less than 60 cubic meters in volume. When the capsule breaks upon striking the target, the liquid quickly evaporates and turns into a fuel-air mix, which is ignited by an initiator charge. The volumetric explosion of this mini-vacuum bomb has great destructive kinetic energy in closed spaces and shelters, as well as against lightly armored vechicles, due to its thermobaric (high-temperature shock wave) effect. The explosive force of the RPO-A capsule 'is more powerful than a 122 mm howitzer shell'.
       
       The third protocol of the 1980 Geneva Convention (ratified by Russia) forbids the use of incendiary weapons 'under any circumstances against an object located near a civilian population'
       
       
       President Vladimir Putin was, of course, correct when he came out decisively against a public investigation into the tragedy at Beslan. Neither Stalin, nor Khrushchev, nor Brezhnev would have let a 'parliamentary commissions' get close. But our government these days is weak, and whenever it is threatened, it immediately retreats.
       Obviously, the Kremlin was hoping that the parliamentary commission, under the direction of the extremely obedient Federal Council, would work in private and in a year or two publish some extracts of secret reports, which society would scarely notice, since it had already forgotten about Beslan because of new calamities and tragedies.
       This was not well thought out by our chiefs, and Putin's vertical line of authority turns out to be nothing more than a stick inserted into a bog.
       In Russia nowadays it is practically impossible to keep anything secret for long. Local residents and the military in Beslan have talked to the commission, and continue to talk openly. Information and rumors spread and fall into print. The official version of the evens of 1-3 September, which from the very beginning were full of internal contradictions and incongruities, is falling apart before their very eyes.
       After it became clear that 90% of the hostages were either wounded or killed, the powers began to assert that there was no 'storm' planned, that the spetsnaz were just hanging about the school for three days, and later acted on the situation, so these losses - including among the 'Vympel' and 'Alfa' of the FSB - were to be expected. It was declared that the terrorists 'shot children in the back', though no proof of any kind was offered. The character of battle, where everyone was shooting willy-nilly, does not allow us to accurately determine who was shot 'in the back', and who simply got caught in the cross fire. Of course, this in no way justifies the terrorists, who put the children in the path of death and bullets.
       There is more and more evidence that, from the very beginning, there was no special operation for freeing the hostages prepared, but a combat operation to destroy rebels at all costs. According to the official chronical of events, at 14:02 on September 3rd, there were several explosions, as if accidental, and some of the hostages ran away. The Ossetian police officers and 'militia' opened fire, but the operational headquarters continued to call the terrorists, offering to cease fire, and only at about 3 O'clock did the FSB's spetsnaz begin storming the school. In reality, on September 3rd the operational headquarters had in bravado informed the news agencies that the school had been occupied by the troops, and that the hostages had been freed. In truth, the battle raged another twelve hours.
       By the way, at 14:17, according to a time hack on a foreign television broadcast, while they seemingly were trying to stop the storming of the school, an Mi-24 strike helicopter was patrolling the air above the school. The heavily armored machine could not have appeared so suddenly if it had not been made ready for flight in advance, and if the crew had not earlier been instructed about the area and rules of engagement. Now, according to statements by the local residents, it so happens that the Mi-24 did not just patrol, but fired on Beslan on September 3rd.
       An Mi-24 may fly and accurately engage targets only in daytimes and in good weather. Therefore, tanks from the 58th army group were sent in, most likely a long time previous to this, and used for direct fire. Whoever saw pictures from the chronicles of the battles in Moscow on October, 1993, can imagine what such direct tank fire can do in a city.
       The holy aim of any anti-terror operation is to save as many innocents as possible. To achieve this, they conduct negotiations, make concessions, promise to carry out demands, and in so doing try to calm and cajole the terrorists to free as many hostages as possible. Only when the possibilites for bargaining are fully exhausted, and the number of hostages has been substantially reduced, is force used, and in so doing, in a surgically precise manner.
       In Beslan they did not attempt to make concessions, or conduct negotiations in earnest about curtailing the war in Chechnya - the main demand of hostage-takers. No, they whipped the terrorists into a frenzy, and later, a disorganized, confused military operation for cleaning out the school spontaneously began.
       According to eyewitness accounts (and Russian television confirms this), the spetsnaz used the rocket incendiary 'Bumblebee', with its thermobaric warhead (RPO-A).
       During the storming of Grozny in January, 1995, units of the chemical corps, attached to assault teams, used these rocket incendiary launchers widely and to great effect in suppressing firing points and snipers - by burning out buildings.
       Now they go to liberate child hostages with flamethrowers. Evidently, the spetsnaz guessed that in using 'Bumblebee' there would be no one left alive. In the course of an operation combining tanks, aircraft, and flamethrowers against one separate school building, chances of rescue were truly very small.
       
       Pavel Fel'gengauer, Reviewer for «New Gazeta»

[Just mythoughts]

Interesting!

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More from the above article:

    
       
Specialist's Commentary
       
       Colonel Aleksandr Silin (first and last names changed) commanded a chemical services unit in Chechnya, which was equipped with with the reaktivnye pekhotnye ognemety 'rocket infantry flamethrower' (RPO), which carried the code name 'Bumblebee':         The RPO 'Bumblebee' uses 3 types of projectiles: incendiary or napalm; smoke, which can lay down a smokescreen over an area of more than 3 km; and thermobaric, that creates such high temperature and pressure that an explosion of great power is produced. Shooting 3 thermobaric projectiles from a 'Bumblebee' at a 5-story building can completely destroy it.
       I doubt that they could fire such charges at the school. It is possible that could have substituted a considerably smaller thermobaric warhead than used on the 'Bumblebee', based on the RPG-7 rocket launcher. This projectile we named 'pig'. The operating principle is the same as on the 'Bumblebee', only the power of the blast is less. These charges cannot be used indoors, since the RPG and RPO tubes cause a strong back-blast, which can even slay the one firing the weapon.
       
       Writen down by Vyacheslav IZMAYLOV, military reviewer of 'New Gazette'.
       
       07.10.2004
       

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[Askel5]

Who are they?

Maybe we could get some of the Experts who testified to Congress regarding Waco for Another Opinion on whether or not "Bumblebees" are incendiary or safe for firing upon civilians.

I think the prioritizing's interesting.

Lessee ... rescue the hostages or kill the terrorists ... hrm. That's a tough one.

Back in Rwanda as the Belgians were decamping the school at which a thousand or more were finding refuge, the soon-to-be-victims of the "internal civil conflict into which we could not intervene" begged to be machine-gunned to death. Seems they found a certain, quick death far preferable to an agonizing wait and wondering whether they'd be macheted to death or die in some other gruesome brutal Sadistic fashion.

I think this operation sends a message such that Terrorist know they'll go quickly along with the Collateral Damage that, win:win, gets killed either way.

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Who are they?

From the tennis shoes and beer bottle, I'd rule out spetsnaz. Probably a local militia or police reserves.

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(Ping)

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Update, from Novaya Gazeta, October 21st, 2004:

What was on the roof of building no. 39?
       
       Novaya Gazeta has already written about how the Beslan hostages' stories differ from the official portrayal of the assault (see issue no. 74 from October 7th). Russian television has also confirmed that special forces used the incendiary rocket launcher 'Bumblebee' during the assault. A little while ago parliamentarian Arkady Baskayev, a member of the commission investigating the terror act, in an interview with BBC stated that in the course of the school storming, heavily equipped units used grenade and incendiary rocket launchers. Important questions now remain. First: at what stage of the assault - while hostages were still in the school, or when only rebels remained - did they use this particular incendiary weapon, which the Geneva convention forbids 'under any circumstances against any target near a concentrated civilian populace'. And secondly: will this information be officially confirmed or denied?

The media was not permitted into the commission meetings. The commission declared a desire to conduct closed hearings. Ruslan Kastuyev, press spokesman for the North Caucasus president, deflected inconvenient questions as best he could:

"Ruslan, is it true that fire-rocket launchers were used during the assault?"
"The commission does not know at this time. It came here in order to find out."
"But Deputat Baskayev said that they were actually used, and he is also a member of the commission."
"Baskayev knows, but at this time the rest do not."

Meanwhile, local residents have long since known what the commission has yet to dig up. During the storming of the Beslan school, the special forces used 'Bumblebee' incendiary rocket launchers.

* * *

Five-storey buildings on School Alley - the closest to the school. In the first hours after the seizure of the hostages, all of the residents were asked to leave the premesis. Men with rocket launchers sat on the roofs. Corner apartments on the top floors were occupied by snipers and grenadiers. No one lives in these apartments now - they have been almost completely burned out. When the fire-fight began, sparks set fire to curtains and wallpaper. Lower apartments also suffered - they were flooded when the upper-floor fires were put out. The city administration is hurriedly performing the most basic, standard renovations, and is buying residents new furniture.

Gregoriy Beroyev's apartment is not a corner apartment. There were no special forces there. Only Gregoriy was in it during the assault; he refused to leave.

"They occupied the apartments on the first of September," Gregoriy recalled. "At first they just sat, but when our leaders said that no one was going to let the children go, they started the assault. They fired on the school. What they did here! They fired so much that I thought the walls were going to fall in."
I asked him what they were shooting, rocket launchers?
"No, the guys with the rockets were sitting on the roof."

One can easily reach the roof of building 39 through the garret. On the roof, just past the stairwell-housing, a bunch of rags are strewn about. A lot of carelessly opened, unlabelled cans are there, as well as an entire mountain of sugar in single-use packets. Metallic brackets of television antennas. If one runs their hand across them, it comes back soiled with soot. Rocket exhaust singed them, confirms Elbrus Tedtov, a former tank crewman and now chief of a company of SWAT police. Under the rubberoid covering, one can find a few shell casings, but someone had time to do a clean up. A new broom is laying nearby.

One by one, men in civilian clothes call on the inhabitants of the surrounding homes, asking them not to talk too much. Police officer Aleksandr P. said that after the assault, he was brought in for questioning:
"They said to me: in one of your houses there were some television people. Where is the cassette? And I said: you should ask the them. But they kept demanding the cassette anyway."

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH

Our military specialist, Vyacheslav Izmailov, got in touch with a member of the parliamentary security committee, Colonel-General Arkadiy Baskayev, who works in a sub-committee of the commission studying the activities of law enforcement and special forces during the period of the Beslan school hostages' seizure and liberation.

"Arkadiy Georgiyevich, a few days ago during a radio interview, you said that heavy artillery was used against the terrorists in Beslan.
"It wasn't quite like that. The 58th Army command in Vladikavkaz reported the use of heavy ordnance, but their subdivisions were only put in action during the liberation of the hostages, as well as in explosives clean up afterwards."
"Was heavy ordnance used while there were still hostages in the school?"
"No. Right now we are working in Beslan in order to find out, in the most minute detail, how the responsible parties, the staff that worked to free the hostages, law enforcement agencies, the military, how everyone who took part in this operation acted."
"Will the results of your commission's work be published?"
"They will be published in full. Here, there can be no secrets, with the exception, perhaps, of certain details concerning technical equipment which could be used sometime again in the future, and should not be disclosed to the terrorists. We also cannot publish the names of special unit officers who are active in the destruction of terrorists."

[Just mythoughts]

"They will be published in full. Here, there can be no secrets, with the exception, perhaps, of certain details concerning technical equipment which could be used sometime again in the future, and should not be disclosed to the terrorists. We also cannot publish the names of special unit officers who are active in the destruction of terrorists."

Another 'commission' in the making... I commonly referred to our 9/11 'commission as a 'soviet style' commission. Will be interesting to watch the similarities.

Thanks for the update...

[GarySpFc]

In my opinion the men in the picture are not Spetsnaz.

I have mentioned many times on this list that I was formerly in the Special Forces, and while that was over 30 years ago most tactics do not change. Additionally, the Spetsnaz have the Bumblebee which I am not familiar with, but understand the principle. IT IS VERY OBVIOUS TO ME WHY THEY HAD IT ON THE SCENE.
You might recall many years ago an embassy in London was seized by terrorists, and the SAS regained control. The SAS threw stun grenades into the building a couple of seconds prior to assaulting the building. In any operation of this sort it is necessary to distract the terrorists for just a few seconds and also create a state of confusion.
It is also necessary to provide those assaulting the building cover, and in my opinion the Bumblebee laying down a smokescreen PERFECTLY fills that need. It would NOT be used unless the commander on the scene gave the order. They might also have a tank or armored vehicle on the scene, but that does not mean it was to be used. I honestly think way too much is being made of this.

[GarySpFc]

One by one, men in civilian clothes call on the inhabitants of the surrounding homes, asking them not to talk too much. Police officer Aleksandr P. said that after the assault, he was brought in for questioning: "They said to me: in one of your houses there were some television people. Where is the cassette? And I said: you should ask the them. But they kept demanding the cassette anyway."

Maybe the Russian should announce to everyone exactly what tactics they used so the terrorists will know exactly how to respond in the future. After what happened in Moscow every Chechen terrorist is going to come prepared with a gas mask, and that is exactly what happened at Beslan.

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I take it that's not a Moskovitch?

A Moskvich? This one?

Hmmm...

It looks kinda Renaulty or Citroeny, but it could be a newer Lada Samara

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Here's the butt-end of an old Moskvich. The sticker says: Merskvich-fighter.

I came home and went back again a couple more times. Now they don't want me, so I think I'll do a massive road trip. Pass the jerky ;-)

[jb6]

And the fact that said rockets are also useful for putting down a smoke screen or if needed breaking through built up areas, such as the buildings some of the terrorists fled to? Or do people expect troops to run through open courtyards with no smoke coverage?

[jb6]

Look at the picture of the exploded roof. If one is to fire a rocket into it or a tank shell, then 1. there would be an entry point and the wood and such around it would be blown outward in various directions. Since what is visible is intact main beams with the roof covering blown off, this is obviously the result of an over pressurization within the building: such as cause by a large enternal explosion that had enough force to scatter the tiling without removing or even breaking the supporting beams, more then likely because the force of the explosion already vented to some degree.

[jb6]

How, under God's blue sky, do you go from the situation of the hostages in Belsan to this ludicrous analogy: Back in Rwanda as the Belgians were decamping the school at which a thousand or more were finding refuge, the soon-to-be-victims of the "internal civil conflict into which we could not intervene" begged to be machine-gunned to death. Seems they found a certain, quick death far preferable to an agonizing wait and wondering whether they'd be macheted to death or die in some other gruesome brutal Sadistic fashion.

Are you suggesting that the Russian forces were moving in to butcher the people? That a quick shooting by the terrorists was mercy then being rescued by your own people? I have seen some, to say mildly, strange logic on your part, but this is beyond the pale. This borders lunacy.

To say the operation was well planned or carried out would be a far stretch but to say the hostages were better off with the terrorists then being rescued in what ever fashion is Sadistic (as you highlighted that word yourself).