[mikegi]

Of course, the Monday morning quarterbacks at Reuters try to pin this on Putin with the repetition of the "Putin was a law-and-order man, how could this happen" junk. This kind of thing is virtually unstoppable once the infiltration begins. It has to be stopped at the source through moles or intelligence.

[alisasny]

This guy is so right however the Russians can pretty much say anything about what they are doing and not be called to question.

Putin has a real chance right now to show his strength,,,,will he step up for the challange?

[randita]

I hope this incident pushes Putin toward Bush's side in regards to Iraq.

[TomGuy]

Yeh...one can choose to live with cockroaches, or one can choose to get rid of them. The difference is, the Islamic radical cockroaches have real guns and kill real people; thus, they are difficult to live with, since they consider the rest of the world great infidels, whom they've sworn to kill.

[Savage Beast]

"Bush showed the world what to do with these bastards after September 11."

Would somebody please hand Konstantinov a megaphone!

The world needs more Russians. They showed the world what to do with the Nazi bastards at Stalingrad, and I'm sure Bush is well aware of it.

[Prodigal Son]

I think this is the best that could've been hoped for, given the situation. If I had been in that theatre, I would've been praying for that- better to get killed in the crossfire than die in the way the jihadis wanted.

The Russian Special Forces who accomplished this must be incredibly brave. For all they knew the muslim dogs would simply detonated their bombs at the first sight of them- killing them all. My hat's off to them for a succesful end to this and for having the balls to do it. I'm glad we've got people like that on our side.

Now, let that be a lesson to those muslims worldwide who were all sitting there watching al Jazeera praying to their moongod that the terrorists would blow the place up. Never let that escape your mind- while we sit here relieved that the situation had a relatively positive ending- the muslim hoardes out there- men, women and children- were gathered around their televisions and radios hoping to see a massive loss of life- hoping to see it. This is negative end for them- they only killed 70 of us when they had the chance to kill hundreds- no passing out candy in the streets today in the West Bank I guess.

Hopefully Putin will take the hint from the 60 year old man who was quoted in the article. Liquidate Chechnya.

[TomGuy]

Quoted from an earlier news report:

"After that a group of hostages, deciding they had nothing to lose, tried to break out of the building and came under intense fire from the terrorists. This was the signal for the Alpha Spetsnaz force to start the rescue operation."

That group of hostages' heroism saved countless other hostages' lives.

[RossA]

Igor Konstantinov for Secretray-General!!

[Mamzelle]

Looks like this conflict will also go down as the most underreported Huge Story in history. Couldn't find decent coverage anywhere. Just the same Wellstone eulogies, over and over and over...