Stay safe
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 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 blame also falls on those who decided to look the other way.
I agree, and you said it far better than I am capable of stating....
My inbred Marine Corps perspective is focused on - force protection and enemy destruction.
Semper Fi
School renovations. Perfect cover.
Just some hardworking Chechen immigrants doing the jobs Russians wouldn't do...
Bookmark.
Nothing like that will happen until after another tragedy like the one in Russia strikes us in Hometown USA. Then I think some states will begin to take their own approaches above and beyond federal mandates.
I think that these self-proclaimed "Imams" (sic) who preach jihad should be targeted. Operation Global Phoenix.
Yep, "moderate" Muslims had better act in their own self-interest and speak out, march, hold candle light vigils.
I read their silence as tacit agreement with the jihadists.
You noticed that too, eh?
Imagine you're a terrorist. Now imagine that you're a mo-slime. But I repeat myself....
I couldn't agree more.
Their hatred is stronger right now - we can only hope that the west will eventually reach the point where we will do what it takes to survive.
It can't be stressed enough that it isn't possible to terrify religious fanatics sufficiently to stop them. You don't set examples to get their attention the way you would do with "normal" evil people. Their fanaticism will end only with their death.
In the meantime the madrassas schools and all funding for weapons and other terrorist activities must end today.
I want to look for terrorist websites. Does anyone know of any Arabic-English Translation software? I can buy it for about $1000. But I don't have 1K just lying around.
More empty words from them. we've heard their empty words before. When are they going to turn them in when they hear about them planning such actions? When are they going to reform their hate teaching schools and mosques? We will see more empty words.
In recent months, I've seen a significant increase in families at our outstanding County Field Sports ranges...
Pistol and rifle firing points -- being filled to levels on weekdays and weekends I've never seen before.. I am able to go frequently with my friends, and we are constantly observing new faces. The best aspect - is they are bringing their wives, sons and daughters and grandchildren.....
It's enough to warm this old man's heart!
This is a good sign..... folks are finally getting serious about the Second Amendment and their obligation to be prepared for self defense, or defense of the Republic..
Semper Fi
They certainly could, especially if the RATS take control and get to tearing up the Patriot Act, which I am convinced has saved untold lives since it was passed.
What you said.
Ol' Mark Steyn jumped on that too:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1207946/posts
Doubtless the NATO-issue camoflage got to them from the rats nests of Mohammedan terrorists that Clinton helped establish in the Balkans: the non-Serb part of Bosnia and Albanianized Kosovo.
I prefer the 300-378 for this kind of work with the 340 being next. Good velocity for explosive wounding. If you are going to use the 460 you might as well use a 50
Stay safe
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