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Ex-policeman 'masterminded Beslan terror'
UK Telegraph ^ | 9/12/04 | Tom Parfitt

Posted on 09/12/2004 12:36:31 PM PDT by wagglebee

A police sergeant from Ingushetia who disappeared six years ago is accused of being among the ringleaders of the Beslan siege. Officials of the republic's interior ministry believe that Ali Taziyev, who worked for Ingushetia's external security division protecting government officials, has turned into a ruthless killer since he was caught up in a kidnapping involving Chechens in 1998.

His family believes that he is dead, but the interior ministry claims that he joined the Chechen rebel movement and has taken part in several operations against Russian forces, under the codename Magas.

Officials now suspect that he was one of four commanders who masterminded the attack on School Number One in Beslan in which more than 330 people died, more than half of them children.

Musa Apiyev, Ingushetia's deputy interior minister, told the Telegraph: "The fighter known as Magas, who is the former police officer Taziyev, is connected to a series of terrorist attacks and there is evidence that he participated in the Beslan incident." Mr Apiyev said that Magas was the "leader of a bandit formation" based in Ingushetia. The tiny republic, flanked by mountains, has suffered in recent years from the spill-over of conflict from neighbouring Chechnya.

Police released a photograph that, they say, shows Taziyev earlier this year with Shamil Basayev, the Chechen warlord accused by Moscow of organising the Beslan attack. The Russian security service, the FSB, has offered a £5.5 million bounty for information leading to the capture of Basayev and another Chechen leader, Aslan Maskhadov.

In the week since the siege began, investigators have been piecing together the identities of the terrorists. The small town in North Ossetia, the Christian region that abuts Muslim Ingushetia, became the focus of world attention when 32 terrorists stormed the school and took hostage 1,100 pupils, parents and teachers, on September 1. More than 330 people were killed and hundreds more wounded when the siege came to a bloody end two days later.

Recordings of the terrorists' telephone conversations reveal that they repeatedly referred to a man called Magas, although it is unclear whether he was in the building or directing operations from outside.

A search for Taziyev was launched last month after he was accused of taking part in attacks on police stations and government buildings in the republic's capital, Nazran, in June, which killed almost 100 people.

He is also suspected of involvement in an assassination attempt on the Ingush president Murad Zyazikov earlier this year.

Police officials say that the other three commanders who organised the attack were also known by codenames: The Colonel, Abdullah and Fantomas.

Russia's general prosecutor, Vladimir Ustinov, told President Vladimir Putin last week that "The Colonel" led the operation inside the school. He has been tentatively identified as a senior rebel from southern Ingushetia. Fantomas is thought to have been a Russian or Chechen former bodyguard to Basayev. Abdullah is believed to be from Ossetia.

Mr Apiyev said: "There are more and more small units moving around in the forests and mountains in the North Caucasus who were only inside Chechnya in the past." He said many fighters were recruited through extremist Muslim communities known as Jamaats.

It remains unclear why the shy, young policeman joined the anti-Russian fighters. He has not been seen since October 10, 1998, when he and a fellow officer were ambushed while protecting the wife of a presidential adviser in Nazran. They were all piled into a car and driven into Chechnya.

A few months later, the wife was freed. The body of the second policeman was found a year later. Taziyev, however, had disappeared.

His family gave up looking for his body in 2001. "We heard nothing, even when his father died," said his mother, Lida, in an interview. "If he was alive, he would have at least passed a message to us."

Investigators, however, believe that he may have been an accomplice in the kidnapping, drawn by the prospect of ransom money. The headquarters of the Ingush interior ministry is still pockmarked by gunfire from the June raids on Nazran. Dozens of officers were killed in the attacks. Major Madina Khadzieva said that the attacks on the city and the school in Beslan were carried out by the "same bandits with the same style of attack". Magas, she claimed, was among the leaders on both occasions.

"Just a few days before the Beslan siege, we received information that a school in Nazran would be attacked," she said. "That was almost certainly a diversionary tactic by the same group."

Taziyev's family, however, is adamant that he is innocent. His younger brother, Alan, said: "The police used to think that someone else was Magas. Now they have discovered that that person is dead and they are looking for a new scapegoat."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: barbarians; beslan; beslanmassacre; caucasus; chechens; jihadists; muslimterrorists
When will the media begin to acknowledge that Chechens, al Qaida, Palestinians, Hezbollah, Hamas and etc. are all just various factions of the worldwide Muslim jihad movement?
1 posted on 09/12/2004 12:36:32 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

al Qaida, Hezbollah, and Hamas are Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations but "Chechens" and "Palestinians" are not.

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/


2 posted on 09/12/2004 12:49:05 PM PDT by gutshot
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To: wagglebee

When will the media begin to acknowledge that Chechens, al Qaida, Palestinians, Hezbollah, Hamas and etc. are all just various factions of the worldwide Muslim jihad movement?

 



 

 

3 posted on 09/12/2004 12:50:17 PM PDT by Fintan (Oh...am I supposed to read the article???)
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To: wagglebee

Yep....how many Muslim cops, intelligence agents, Feds, reserve and active duty military are waiting in the wings...right here at home.......

Tick Tick Tick...

IMO


4 posted on 09/12/2004 4:45:05 PM PDT by joesnuffy ( "Two Heads Are Better Than One"...."Unless They're On The Same Person" -Andy Sipowicz)
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