Posted on 09/05/2004 6:48:58 PM PDT by neverdem
BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 5 Inside the charred, bullet-pocked wreckage of Middle School No. 1 lies evidence of the terror Russia faces: two parts of the library's wooden floor had been pried up, evidently by the heavily armed attackers who seized the school and held 1,000 hostages for 52 hours.
Beneath the schools first-floor library, investigators now suspect, the attackers had secreted a cache of weapons or other equipment weeks, perhaps months before their brutal attack, possibly during a seemingly innocuous summer renovation, officials said.
While investigators have only begun to piece together the details of the worst act of terror to strike Russia, the holes in the library's floor, which might easily be overlooked in the gruesome carnage of the school, underscored the sophistication and coordination that has accompanied the radicalization of the attacks that have convulsed the country.
The attackers said to include Chechens, Ingush, ethnic Russians and some still-unidentified foreigners followed a plan after the school's seizure with precision and alacrity, forcing their hostages to help place explosives and build barricades. They wore NATO-issued camouflage. They carried gas masks, compasses and first-aid kits, communicated with hand-held radios and brought along two sentry dogs, apparently as expertly trained as the attackers themselves.
"They knew the geography of the school grounds like their own backyard," the chief spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service, Sergei N. Ignatchenko, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. "This allowed them to choose sniper positions and place booby-traps on all possible access routes."
The depth of planning evident in the horrifying siege, which by today's official count left 338 hostages dead, mirrored that of a series of attacks that have roiled Russia, beginning with a similar siege of a Moscow theater during a performance of a musical called "Nord-Ost" in October 2002 and continuing through a grim litany of suicide bombings and other strikes that culminated with shocking brutality here last week.
Like Al Qaeda's militants, which President Vladimir V. Putin and others argue provide succor to Chechnya's separatists, the extremists believed to be behind all attacks have managed to dispatch cells of ideologues who spend extended periods organizing and carrying out spectacular, unnerving attacks, often suicidal ones.
The attackers believed to be members of a contingent led by Shamil Basayev, Chechnya's most notorious and lethal rebel commander have moved seamlessly between the North Caucasus and Moscow, while evading Russia's extensive, if at times ineffective, security apparatus. They have so despite particular scrutiny that falls on anyone appearing to be Chechen.
In February, a female suicide bomber, possibly with an accomplice, destroyed a Moscow subway car, killing at least 41 early-morning commuters. In May, a bomb planted beneath a stadium grandstand killed Chechnya's president, Akhmad Kadyrov, as he watched a Victory Day parade in Grozny. In June, hundreds of insurgents used stolen uniforms of the local police to seize much of Ingushetia's capital for hours, stopping and executing the real police officers who raced to reinforce their colleagues, killing nearly 100.
On Aug. 21, fighters carried out a similar raid in Grozny, with similar tactics, killing at least 22. Three days later, bombs believed to be carried by two Chechen women destroyed separate passenger airliners simultaneously, killing 90 people. A week later, a female suicide blew herself up outside the Rizhskaya subway station in Moscow, killing 10. Hours after that the siege in Beslan began.
"They have shown they are able to do everything they want in each corner of Russia," said Aleksei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
The Times is making some progress. Check the URL.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/international/europe/05CND-TERR.html?hp
Yada, yada, yada, call in the UN, call in France, Call in Germany and then if you got a dime left call in John Kerry.
Evidently it takes alot of advanced planning to be a gutless, despicable, murderous, child killing coward.
No Islamics here. Move along.
They wore NATO issued camoflage. Interesting.
They could do the same in Hometown USA.
I hope the FBI is up to stopping them in their organizational phases.
Quran 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.
Bukhari:V4B52N50The Prophet said, A single endeavor of fighting in Allahs Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it.
Quran 9:112 The Believers fight in Allahs Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.
Quran 9:29 Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.
Quran 8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Quran 8:39So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).
DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE MUSLUM RELIGION IS PEACEFUL, THAT IS HYPE. MUSLUMS WANT TO KILL US, PERIOD!
L
These illegal aliens doing the work that no one else wants to do in America . Have they been renovating their next target too ??..........Doom on such trash that makes their task to kill so easy.
Stay safe !
Do a search in this NYSLIME article for the word "terrorist".
Hmmm...Yes it IS interesting.
I see that the nyslimes still hasn't peeped a word about the nature of the atrocities done to the children. They don't want Americans who about to vote to know about it for fear that they will vote for Bush a known terror fighter, to a pacifist kerry who will only fight if attacked.
NOW is the time for our "peace loving" non-militant Muslim to stop complaining about their "problems" with the Patriot Act, and start speaking and ACTING out against the lunatics in their midst....or share their fate.
Semper Fi
This is the reason for the anger of the Beslan people and the sometimes-despairing outlook of the Russians. It is an important issue and should not be overlooked. Basayev once claimed that he could bribe his way to Moscow with a truck full of explosives if he had the money for the bribes.
Remember this came up after the Nord Ost tragedy too. How did they get there with all the stuff? Right in Moscow.
Security needs to be tightened up. Putin is saying that it will happen now.
Right on. Here is what I had to say on this subject on another thread:
It is now long past time for the world- and that means the world's governments- to finally face facts.
The blame for what just happened in Russia, and for all the preceeding horrors of the WTC (both attacks), Nairobi, Khobar Towers, the Cole, Bali, and on and on, must be laid squarely at the feet of the Arabic states and the Muslim preachers of hate that inhabit them. The reluctance in these lands to silence these slimy purveyors of hate has been obvious for too long.
It has now become incumbent on all civilized peoples to demand that these Mullahs, Imams, Shiekhs, and other assorted "nutbags of esteem" in their benighted lands be quieted forever.
It is now the time for Muslims worldwide to understand that the West's wish to see Islam survive cannot be greater than the Muslim's own. If the death-wish now so manifest in the Islamic world is not curbed within and BY the Islamic world, then it certainly will not be incumbent on us, their long-suffering victims, to insure a sweet outcome on their behalf.
Many of us, like me, would rather help them on their way to "Paradise".
It is time to bring the hammer down, people, and in so doing make Muslims everywhere fear us more than they fear the sociopathic death worshippers in their midst. Maybe then they will act.
Of course, it would be far preferable that they act first of their own volition, out of a sense of morality - or even out of a desire to survive, but I fear that they secretly love and admire these murderers of children, and pray for their souls and for their success.
If so, they are as craven as the murderers themselves.
Perhaps they think that in the coming war, they will prevail.
They are wrong. When this war comes, it will not be possible for us to wage war with the delicacy that we have shown in Iraq.
It is up to the Muslims now, whether they wish to live as civilized human beings, or die as pigs.
The question is, which is stronger - the hatred of the Islamofascist terrorists toward the West (incl. Russia), or the West's desire to do whatever it takes to protect our society?
Actually, the more moderate Muslim press is publishing statements by Arab commentators condemming the attacks. There was an AP article out of Cairo noting that the General Manager of Al-Arabiya television's daily column ran under the headline "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!" (This article ran today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and is well worth reading.) I was surprised to see it.
"They have shown they are able to do everything they want in each corner of Russia," said Aleksei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Putin and the boys better get a clue REAL fast! This kind of scum doesn't care WHO it hurts, only that it DOES hurt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.