Posted on 09/04/2004 8:06:02 AM PDT by TexKat
BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - The killing of more than 320 children, parents and teachers during the bloody end to a 53-hour school siege left barely a family untouched in the small Russian town of Beslan.
Grief, anger and uncertainty mingled in the town of 30,000 after the bloodiest hostage crisis in decades ended on Friday with half-naked and wounded children dodging bullets as they fled and security forces stormed the school building.
"Everyone in this town has lost someone," said Alan, looking for news of his sister who had been at the school. "What they say on television is a lie. There could be 600 dead."
His eyes were red from lack of sleep on Saturday and he blinked repeatedly to stop tears as he walked through crowds on squares and street corners, pale and exhausted faces desperately searching for news of relatives and friends.
In the nearby city of Vladikavkaz, hundreds queued up outside the overwhelmed morgue for the gruesome task of identifying their relatives.
Dozens of stretchers lay outside with corpses on them, their skin the color of powdered milk. Most were children or women, naked bodies covered with black tarpaulin or plastic sheets.
Relatives accompanied by nurses picked their way past rows of stretchers, holding handkerchiefs or gauze masks to their faces against the stench.
At the main hospital in Vladikavkaz, one of several dealing with gunshot wounds and burns among victims, the head doctor, Uruzmag Dzhanyev, said 250 children were being treated.
"Many children -- even those who live -- will be invalids. Some do not have eyes," he told Reuters.
STUNT
Anger among the relatives mounted over the silence from Moscow during the siege and President Vladimir Putin's lightning visit early on Saturday under cover of darkness.
"Putin came here at four this morning," said Boris, whose neighbor and all her family disappeared.
"He saw no one and talked to no one. He just wanted to show the world how young and handsome he is but he hasn't helped and he won't help and he can't stop this happening again."
"His visit was a publicity stunt," said Zoya, who could not find her niece. "They should have done everything so that not even one child died. But they didn't."
Russian officials said they had not planned to storm the school building, but were forced to do so when the rebels opened fire on fleeing children.
Zelim Dzeliyev held up photos of his neighbor's children -- four girls, all lost. His friend Albert, also missing, was pictured in a different time altogether with his wife and a monkey on Spain's Costa del Sol.
"My daughter escaped but my son, no one knows what happened to him. We have checked the hospitals, we have asked everyone, but we have no news," said one woman. "The bodies must be so burned that we may never recognize them."
The main doors were plastered with the names of victims and 15 color photographs showing headshots of wounded children in hospital beds, too young to explain who they were.
They appeared on the lists with brief descriptions like "unconscious girl" and "boy who cannot speak." (Additional reporting by Richard Ayton in Beslan)
Russian President Vladimir Putin touches a sleeping injured girl at a hospital in Beslan. Putin said in a televised address that the hostage-taking at a school in southern Russia showed that international terrorism was at work in the country.(AFP/ITAR-TASS/Alexey Panov)
"Meanwhile, Russian television ran with pictures of Putin, dressed in a black suit over a black sweater, visiting the survivors in the local North Ossetia hospital. "The events developed fairly quickly and unexpectedly," NTV television showed Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying.
He tried to speak a girl in hospital but the girl turned away in her bed, and Putin walked away. "
http://sify.com/news/international/fullstory.php?id=13559392
Check history. It is necessary to de-humanize your enemy so when you begin killing them with reckless abandon, it’s just like shooting beer cans off a fence post. Muslims, islamofacists, anyone that even looks toward Mecca once during the day have a toe over the line. The west won’t have to fire up the propaganda machine to accomplish the necessary de-humanizing. They are doing it for us.
Just makes you wonder how much more the west will take before we start shooting those beer cans off the fence.
A charity for the victims:
http://www.moscowhelp.org
MISSION STATEMENT - BESLAN
THE FUND'S GOAL IS TO HELP THE CHILDREN AFFECTED BY THE TERRORIST ACT IN BESLAN
The complete fallout of the terror act in Beslan is not yet clear. What is clear is that this is the worst terror-related human catastrophe in the history of Russia. As of now, media reports indicate at least 150 victims who already died as a direct result of this terrorist act, and over 600 victims, mainly children, have been taken to local hospitals, a large number of them with very serious injuries.
The Foundation was originally established in 2002 to raise personal and corporate charitable donations to help families of the Nord-Ost terror victims. That project was successfully completed with all donations fully distributed.
On September 11, 2001, Russian people and the whole world stood by the people of the United States, Canada, and all other countries whose citizens became victims of that unprecedented terrorist attack.
The Beslan hostage crisis is an example of the same type of terrorism that has perpetrated the September 11 attack. In terms of the number of people involved and the worldwide attention and solidarity, the Beslan siege can in many ways be compared to the major attacks against the US and many other countries.
The Foundation is managed by a group of activists and operates in full accordance with applicable US charity laws.
All personal donations will be used solely to help the children who were injured in Beslan or whose parents died as a result of this terror act.
Putrid, commie Reuters. You hold responsibility for aiding the enemy.
No condemnation of the Muslim terrorists, but strictly an article to demonize Putin.
Absolutely. This is a war against all islam, and we (the Christian West) need to stop pussyfooting around.
The muscum blinded, tortured, maimed and murdered children for their phony moongod.
Iraq was a good start, but let us take down saudi arabia and iran soon, to end this war!
Iraq was a great start, Pakistan has helped tremendously in the region, and the monsters have overstepped in this attack on the Russian schoolchildren. This will unite the world like never before to go after terrorists.
Disagree.
It is NOT our war against Islam.
It is Islam's war against us.
But either way . . . Let's roll!
Every terrorist attack such as this, no matter where in the world it happens, just reinforces what President Bush has said about terrorism. We must fight the war on their land so we won't have to fight it here in our homeland.
Relatives examine a list of released hostages who were rushed to hospital after Russian troops stormed a school seized by Chechen separatists in the town of Beslan near Chechnya, September 4, 2004. At least 322 people, including 155 children, were killed in in the events ending the siege. REUTERS/Viktor Korotayev
Relatives and neighbors of a killed hostage, 8-year-old Teimuraz Morgoyev, grieve in front of his house in the town of Beslan, near Chechnya (news - web sites), September 4, 2004. At least 322 people, almost half of them children, died in the bloodbath that ended a school siege by Chechen separatists in southern Russia, a senior justice official said on Saturday. REUTERS/Viktor Korotayev
Emergency workers collect corpses of militants outside a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. ITAR-Tass news agency quotes a prosecutor as saying 322 bodies have been pulled from the school in southern Russia by Saturday, including 155 children. (AP Photo)
Emergency workers clean up the destroyed sport hall of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. ITAR-Tass news agency quotes prosecutors as saying 322 bodies have been pulled from school in southern Russia by Saturday. (AP Photo)
People search for relatives among the bodies of dead hostages at a makeshift morgue in the town of Vladikavkaz, September 4, 2004. At least 322 people, including 155 children, died during the bloody end to a hostage-taking at a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan, near Chechnya, a senior prosecutor said on Saturday. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
I really hope that the people there take charge of this situation. Going after the children makes this a blood war with no quarter. Burn down every mosque they find, kill every Muslim, torture every Arab.
The time has come to grit our teeth and do what has to be done.
Not very much more...
Grief aside, doesn't this sound like the left here in the US?
By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer
BESLAN, Russia - President Vladimir Putin promised on Saturday a tough response to what he called an "all-out war" by terrorists against Russia, as the body count from the school hostage-taking rose to more than 340 dead and some relatives still searched for their loved ones amid the confusion.
A grim-faced Putin addressed the nation on television after a pre-dawn visit to the scene of the hostage-taking in Beslan. In a suprise admission of weakness, he said Russia's past response to terrorism had been insufficient and said he would carry out wide reforms to strengthen the security forces.
"We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," the former KGB spy said.
In Beslan, authorities were counting the dead, and relatives of hostages frantically searched through lists of the names of survivors, a day after security forces stormed the school where militants had been holding more than 1,000 hostages — mostly women and children — for nearly three days.
Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said 323 people, including 156 children, were killed in Friday's violence. Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said that all 26 hostage-takers were also killed.
Medical officials said more than 542 people including 336 children were hospitalized after the eruption of violence that ended the 62-hour hostage drama on Friday.
Commandos stormed the school after the militants set off explosions and began shooting at hostages who fled. The result was 10 hours of chaos. Crying children, some naked and covered with blood, fled the scene or were carried out amid explosions and gunfire. Security forces chased militants who split into groups and took refuge in a home and a basement. During the initial explosions, part of the school roof collapsed, causing many deaths.
Putin flew to Beslan, in the southern republic of North Ossetia, before dawn Saturday, as smoke was still rising from the shattered school. He ordered the borders of North Ossetia sealed while security forces search for the militants' accomplices.
He visited several hospitalized victims, stopping to stroke the head of one injured child and the arm of the school principal.
"Even alongside the most cruel attacks of the past, this terrorist act occupies a special place because it was aimed at children," he said during a meeting with regional officials, which was broadcast on Russian television.
He stressed that security officials had not planned to storm the school — trying to fend off any potential criticism that the government side had provoked the bloodshed. Some North Ossetians complained, however, that his visit was too little, too late.
"Why didn't he come earlier? .... Why did he come in the middle of the night?" said Irina Volgokova, 33, whose close friend and the friend's daughter were missing.
"He is the head of our country. He should answer for this before the people."
Later, Putin made a speech on national television saying Russia must mobilize to face the threat of terrorism, telling Russians they could not continue living in a "carefree" way.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nation was weakened and unable to respond effectively to terrorism, Putin said.
He blamed police corruption and porous borders for the failure to stop attacks. "In any case, we couldn't adequately react ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said.
He said measures would be taken to strengthen Russia's unity, create a more effective crisis management system, establish a new system to control the situation in the Caucasus, and overhaul the law enforcement organs.
The school attack followed a suicide bomb attack outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday that killed eight people, and last week's near-simultaneous crash of two Russian jetliners last week after what officials believe were explosions on board.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unnamed, high-ranking intelligence official in southern Russia as saying that the school seizure and other major terrorist attacks in Russia had been financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al-Qaida in Chechnya.
The official said the school raid was masterminded by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev and led by field commander Magomed Yevloyev, who was believed to be the leader of the strict Wahhabi sect of Muslims in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya.
Nine or ten of the slain hostage-takers were Arabs, Russian officials said. An Arab presence could boost claims of involvement by international militant groups.
Dozens of people crowded around lists of survivors posted at the Beslan hospital Saturday, searching desperately for news of loved ones who were not yet accounted for. A man showed hospital nurses a photograph — a young boy dressed in a suit, like he was going to a birthday party or holiday celebration.
"We run here, we run there, like we're out of our minds, trying to find out anything we can about them," said Tsiada Biazrova, 47, whose neighbors' children had yet to be found.
For some, grief had turned to anger.
"Fathers will bury their children, and after 40 days (the Orthodox Christian mourning period) ... they will take up weapons and seek revenge," said Alan Kargiyev, a 20-year-old university student in the regional capital Vladikavkaz.
Russian authorities said the bloody end to the standoff came after explosions apparently set off by the militants — possibly by accident — as emergency workers were entering the school to collect the bodies of slain hostages.
As hostages took their chance to flee, the militants opened fire on them, and security forces — along with town residents who had brought their own weapons — opened covering fire to help the hostages escape. Commandos stormed into the building and secured it, then chased fleeing militants in the town, with shooting lasting for 10 hours.
Fridinsky, the prosecutor, said the hostage-takers had numbered 26 and all had been killed. The bodies of at least six militants lay outside the school on Saturday, surrounded by black metal and plastic weapons parts and bullets. A forensic investigator studied the bodies.
An explosives expert told NTV television that the militants, themselves strapped with explosives, hung bombs from basketball hoops in the gym and set other explosive devices in the building.
The region's governor, Alexander Dzasokhov, said Friday that the militants had demanded that Russian troops leave Chechnya — the first solid indication that the attack was connected to the rebellion.
The Federal Security Service chief in North Ossetia, Valery Andreyev, said Saturday that investigators were looking into whether militants had smuggled the explosives and weapons into the school and hidden them during a renovation this summer.
Alla Gadieyeva, a 24-year-old hostage who was seized with her son and mother — all three were among the survivors — said the captors laughed when she asked them for water for her mother.
"When children began to faint, they laughed," Gadieyeva said. "They were totally indifferent."
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn region in the past decade provoked Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. 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.
In 1995, rebels led by guerrilla commander Basayev seized a hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, taking some 2,000 people hostage. The six-day standoff ended with a fierce Russian assault, and some 100 people died.
Rows of body bags containing dead hostages lie for identification at a morgue in the town of Vladikavkaz, September 4, 2004. At least 322 people, including 155 children, died during the bloody end to a hostage-taking at a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan, near Chechnya, a senior prosecutor said on Saturday. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting with the North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov and Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev in Beslan, September 4, 2004. Putin ordered a crackdown in seething southern Russia and warned Chechen sympathizers they would be seen as 'accomplices of terrorism'. At least 322 people, almost half of them children, died in the bloodbath that ended a school siege by Chechen separatists in southern Russia, a senior justice official said on Saturday. REUTERS/ITAR-TASS/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE
ping
"When children began to faint, they laughed," Gadieyeva said. "They were totally indifferent."
Are these the actions of those who have a "cause"? Are you reading this, all you commie liberal lefties?
This is a war against all islam.....
It is not. The war is being brought by a misguided segment of reactionaries who think the only way to return to the pure ways is to abandon the present and wrench history backward.
The rank and file have no real interest in that battle.
It's their 911; fewer deaths, but so many innocent children.
Prayers are important. But I think we may have a historic opportunity, as individuals, to encourage a bond with Russia in a global crusade to end the mo-slime horror.
Talking about bowing toward Mecca, there was a man in a local parking lot, spreading a prayer mat and bowing toward the north. It seemed so strange. We don't see many Muslims in head gear around here, so seeing one that didn't even know which direction Mecca was, was especially bazaar.
...No condemnation of the Muslim terrorists, but strictly an article to demonize Putin....
Early this morning I posted/wondered how long would it take before madia maggots would turn this against the Russians.
I said "Not Long". I should have said "Instantly".
Reuters, AP, the Networks, NYT...YOU ARE DESPICABLE.
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