The Associated PressOnward Muslim Soldiers - ping.
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Forces Storm Russia School With Hostages
07:21 AM EST - September 03, 2004
The Associated PressBESLAN, Russia - Commandos stormed a school in southern Russia where hundreds of hostages had been held for three days, and dozens of hostages fled the building, some bloodied and screaming.
Exchanges of gunfire rang out and a large plume of smoke rose over the school as troops clashed with the militants. Reports said some of the gunmen who had captured the building on Wednesday had escaped.
Russian authorities claimed to be in control of the building, but gunfire continued for more than an hour and hundreds of students and others apparently remained inside. Troops blew a hole into the wall of the school to help them escape, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
Some 200 hostages were wounded and five militants were killed in the raid, ITAR-Tass said. The Interfax new agency said several militants who escaped the school were in a local residence surrounded by troops.
The assault came after several explosions boomed from the area and dozens of hostages fled the school.
Some children were covered in blood, some of them carried away to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. Many were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building, and drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety.
The commandos stormed the building on the third day of the hostage crisis in Beslan. The Interfax news agency said militants fired at children who ran from the building, and unconfirmed reports said some of the hostage-takers, possibly including women bearing suicide belts, had fled during the chaos and may have taken hostages with them.
Women escaping the building were seen fainting and others, some covered in blood, were carried away on stretchers. After the escape, commandos assaulted the building.
Interfax said the school's roof had collapsed - possibly from the explosives some militants had strapped to their bodies. The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm.
On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children, and Russian officials had been in negotiations with the militants since they had seized the building Wednesday.
There were conflicting reports of the number of hostages, with official saying about 350 and people among a small group freed on Wednesday saying there were about 1,500.
President Vladimir Putin had said that everything possible would be done to end the "horrible" crisis and save the lives of the children.
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn region in the past decade prompted forceful Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. The most recent, the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.