Posted on 09/03/2004 10:04:07 AM PDT by ezfindit
Russians Storm School; 150 May Be Dead By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer
BESLAN, Russia - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. An official said the death toll could be significantly higher than 150.
Three of the separatist rebels were reportedly still blockaded in a school basement, trading fire with security forces. A Federal Security Service official said militants were still holding hostages — children among them.
Hours after much of the school was secured late Friday afternoon, a large explosion erupted from the school toward nightfall, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Ten militants were killed in the violence, including nine Arabs, an aide to President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said, according to the Interfax news agency. The Arab presence among the attackers would support Putin's contention that al-Qaida terrorists were involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been fighting Russian forces in a brutal a war of independence for most of the past decade.
The chaotic climax to the hostage standoff began when explosions collapsed part of the school roof and gunfire erupted from inside the building where the militants, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, stormed the school Wednesday moring.
The militants — demanding independence for nearby Chechnya — kept the hostages, mostly women and children, in the sweltering gymnasium, refusing to let in food or 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, the escaped hostage told APTN.
After the hostage-takers fled, more than 100 bodies were found in the gymnasium, some apparently killed when part of the school's roof collapsed in the explosion that prompted the Russian security forces to move in.
A Putin aide said the total death toll could be singificantly more than 150 people. An estimated 520 people were wounded, health officials said. The regional health minister earlier reported that at least 218 children were wounded.
Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Putin's top aide on Chechnya, said security forces did not plan to storm the building, but were prompted to move when the hostage-takers set off explosions early Friday afternoon. Witnesses said the militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and then began to escape themselves.
Gunfire rang out for hours as security forces chased hostage-takers, who split into small groups as they fled. Interfax and the ITAR-Tass news agency reported the three militants holed up in the basement may include the head of the group. Another group took refuge in a nearby house where tanks moved in.
Huge columns of smoke rose from the school. Windows were shattered, part of roof was gone and another part was charred. Commandos, residents and journalists scurried around the building and soldiers climbed inside through a lower floor window, all the glass missing.
People ran through the streets, and the wounded were carried off on stretchers. An Associated Press 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 temporary hospital 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."
A cameraman for the British network ITN reported seeing around 100 bodies in the gym. The correspondent for Russia's Interfax news agency reported that there were dozens of bodies in the school, including about 100 in the gym, and that some were killed when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion before the main assault began.
The White House branded the hostage-taking "barbaric" and "despicable" and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests with the terrorists. "The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism," spokesman Scott McClellan said. ...
Militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and security forces returned fire. Once the hostage-takers sought to escape, Russian officials apparently made the decision to storm the building.
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. Russian officials repeatedly said they were not planning to invade and had earlier won the release of 26 hostages through negotiations. Negotiators said the hostage-takers had repeatedly refused offers of food and water througout the standoff.
"They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy," said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. "I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request."
As with reference to Carthage, I submit that the Russians have not been persistent enough.
As long as the greater Islamic world does not police itself, my reservoir of sympathy for them will be very, very low.
Ahh! My computer is working so slowly today and I keep hiccuping my posts. Sorry.
Obviously and evidently, not harsh enough.
You're calling for genocide, then. That'll be sure to make the Chechens stop. Of course, it would place the Russians on an even lower moral plane than the monsters who did this, but hey -- at least the Chechens won't be killing civilians anymore.
Thank you.
It is the chechen mindset, that of sadism and warrior mentality, and it is the wahhabi belief that countries surrounding chechnya need to be "re-taken" and incorporated into chechnya. See the Putin quote on my FR page.
Russia backed out in 96 and chechens then invaded Dagestan.
Exactly. Isn't that the whole objective?
We could fantacize and pretend they could do it on their own, but getting back to reality, with all muslims gone, including the chechens, no further killing should be necessary.
Yes, it could. We need to be vigilant both in prayer and in practice.
Yes, it could. We need to be vigilant both in prayer and in practice.
Yes, it could. We need to be vigilant both in prayer and in practice.
Gesundheit!
Why do we need to digest this point over and over? The muslims everywhere can choose to deal with the killers among them themselves, or expect sooner or later that someone will do it for them, when they start exporting their mayhem. I have seen no evidence, zero, that this is happenening anywhere in a muslim country, where a dedicated killer is taken out by his community, for the safety of all.
It is obvious, that if this is not happening, they are sympathyzers or enablers. alternatively, the community fears them more than the certain deserved retribution that they are sure to get.
Aside from that, most civilized human beings, if they truly care about their "innocent" children (with muslims, this seems to be under age 7)will make every humanly-possible effort to remove them from the site of any retaliatory strike, whereas the sandmaggots do the exact opposite, deliberately distribute the children among the killers to create new martyrs to parade before the world.
So... one more time: the deaths of "innocents" is their choice, not ours.
Unfortuntely, what will be needed here is the same sort of effort that it took to stop the Nazis. Not only will the west need to invade and conquer the centers of Islamic influence, but it will necessitate the use of overwhelming force. Finally, it will require the stamping out of an ideology that calls for the destruction of western civiliztion. We did this to the axis powers in WWII and we will eventually have to do this here.
There will ultimately come a time when we will have to go Dresden and Hiroshima on their asses, or "submit."
The blood of the Russian citizen is no longer boiling.
It's burning, it's jelling.
It's turning into napalm.
And it's waiting to douse these monsters.
The Islamic nazi dogs who murdered these children in the name of their god will have a whole new hell waiting for them when this standoff ends.
If I were Putin, I would make my justice swift and brutal. Every one of these terrorists should be killed. No imprisonment, no trial, just removed from our Earth so they can harm us no more.
Every friend, ally, financial donor, or sympathizer or these sub-human child killers should be laid out in the same grave as they that physically committed the act. Their local Mosques should be cleared of women and children and then bombed to dust and sand. All Muslim women and children should be evacuated from Chechnya, then the region should be turned into rocks. The ground that they raise their crops on should be salted so that nothing will ever grow again in their beloved "breakaway" Muslim "Republic" of Chechnya.
Then, and ONLY then, will this assault on Russia, humanity and the future and freedom of civilized society be avenged.
It's time to get tough.
Please read my previous post to you.
Yes, I think you don't know that. If you did, you would probably not be recommending stupid things.
You seem to think that Russia is to blame for Chechen terrorism.
I think you cannot address Chechen terrorism without understanding its roots. That is not to condone it -- it is to give one a better grasp on the problem.
You remind me of liberal idiots who think the US is to blame for terror attacks against us.
Hm. I have a far less charitable opinion of your reasoning ability.
Maybe -- or maybe we're still at the "1936 stage," or even the "1938 stage," where smaller-scale actions (such as we are currently taking) will eliminate the fanatics, and the larger populations are still not involved. We're certainly not yet at the "1939 stage," with its larger-scale slaughter that came as a result of not acting soon enough.
As President Bush pointed out last night, the key to the whole thing is to transform Islamic societies, rather than to force them into a war against us. That means getting rid of the Saddams, Assads, Arafats, and associated murdering bastards; and it also means we can't go around killing civilians.
Well, if you want to call interdiction in 1936 Nazi Germany a smaller scale operation, I would agree. It would have been easier to launch an invasion on the borders of Germany than the beaches of Normandy.
As President Bush pointed out last night, the key to the whole thing is to transform Islamic societies
The only transformation the Nazis undertook is when their country was conquered, under the command of the allies, and their youth forced into schools that outlawed Nazism.
That means getting rid of the Saddams, Assads, Arafats, and associated murdering bastards; and it also means we can't go around killing civilians.
Of course we don't want to kill civilians. When did the allied forces ever attack civilians? We must also realize though that the allies had to drop their bombs and destroy buildings the Nazis hid in even though they hid behind the skirts of women and their little children. It is a reality of war. The Islamists are famous for this tactic
If you would you call Assad of Syria a terrorist, it well means an assault on Syria. What about Iran? What about their financing of Hamas? That also will require a major military action. Civilians will suffer. These are not merely "fanatics", they are the propagators of an ideology that must be eradicated. We will be in these countries for a long time.
My Friend, launching an assault on Syria and Iran will certainly be on "Large Scale" and if we don't act right away, than we most certainly will have not acted "soon enough".
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