Posted on 10/27/2002 8:40:55 AM PST by Destro
27/10/2002 17:11 - (SA)
'Light mist came from ceiling'
Moscow - An AFP employee who was among the hostages rescued from Chechen rebels said on Sunday that a mystery gas used by Russian forces in the raid was pumped in through the ceiling and left him feeling "as if I had drunk a ton of vodka."
"I was less intoxicated than the others. I had a bandana around my neck and I pressed it against my face," said AFP editorial assistant Oleg Zyogonov (26), speaking by telephone from hospital.
"I passed out and then regained consciousness, this happened several times. It was as if I had drunk a ton of vodka. I heard shouts and lots of gunshots, as in a fight," he added.
Just before Russian special forces stormed the theatre early Saturday, a man had entered the theatre looking for his son. "He was bleeding a little," he said.
According to witnesses, the rebels shot dead the man and another hostage, a young man, who got up after the execution and tried to escape.
It was then that Zyogonov spotted "a light mist coming down from the ceiling. Then, nobody saw anything."
"We all laid down when we smelt gas," Zyogonov said. "Everyone understood the assault was in the offing."
No bullet impact on bodies
Russian officials have offered no information on the gas, describing it only as a "special substance" even though the death toll among the hostages rose to 118.
While coming out of the theatre, Zyogonov saw many bodies lying on the floor, but none of them bore bullet impacts - an account that seemed to confirm reports that the mystery gas caused some of the hostage deaths. "I saw no bullet impact on the bodies," he said.
Zyogonov said he was being kept in hospital because doctors feared the after-effects of the gas and that hospital staff had forbidden him to talk to anybody and were monitoring his telephone conversation with AFP.
"They are not telling us anything about the nature of the gas," he said.
While he could not identify the gas, Zyogonov said it had it smelled of burning.
In what Zyogonov described as his darkest hour, the hostage-takers forced their captives to pray shortly before the raid and told them that "everything would be over in half an hour".
"At that time, we really thought we were done for," he said. "They threatened us from time to time, as soon as there was a problem. We could see it coming, because then they got nervous," he said. "They threatened to kill ten of us every hour."
'We will decapitate some of you'
The commandos also threatened to decapitate some of the hostages if Russian authorities did not meet their demands.
"If the authorities keep bothering us, we will decapitate some of you," Zyogonov said the hostage-takers had told their captives.
Chechen, which seized the crowded Moscow theatre on Wednesday evening, demanded that Russia put an end to the military operation it has been carrying out in Chechnya for more than three years.
The guerrillas burst into the room, shouting "Allah Akbar" (God is great) and shooting in the air, he said.
"When that happened, I thought, 'That's it,'" he said.
After an initial surge of fear, Zyogonov said he and other hostages managed to calm down.
"It is a psychological reaction. After a while, you are so overwhelmed by terror that you have to relax and even laugh, otherwise, you go crazy," he said.
He said he and other hostages told one another jokes to withstand the psychological pressure.
He said that some of the Chechen guerrillas were behaving in a humane way and were trying to comfort and calm them.
"There was a young Chechen not wearing a hood who was quite nice, he would talk to hostages and comfort them," he said.
"The older Chechen women, the ones who were in their 40s, were also nice, they told us that all was going to end well," he said.
However, there was never any doubt for Zyogonov that at least some of the hostages would not survive the crisis.
"I realised that some hostages would be killed. No one ever thought that everybody would come out of this alive. It became a question of guessing who would be killed," he said.
During their whole ordeal, the hostages had practically nothing to drink or eat, Zyogonov said.
'She was led away and we heard four gun shots'
"We only had chocolate and fruit juice. There was nothing," he said.
Zyogonov said the first person killed after the Chechen rebels seized the theatre, a young Russian woman who entered the building from outside later that night, acted defiantly towards the hostage-takers.
"I am not afraid, what the hell are you doing here?" he said the woman, apparently drunk, told the guerrillas.
Commando leader Movsar Barayev "ordered her killed, but he did not kill her himself. She was led away and we heard four gun shots," Zyogonov added.
One hundred and eighteen hostages were killed during the operation to free the captives by Russian special forces, the health ministry said on Sunday, updating the previous death toll of 90 people. - Sapa-AFP
The rest of the world does realize the importance of the fight against Islamic terrorists.
Russia fought the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the '80s, they are fighting the Chechnyans now, they have assisted the Central Asian states in fighting terrorists in those countries. Unfortunately, the United States was aiding those forces for the last two decades.
The Chinese are fighting the Uighurs in Sinkiang. Various "Uighur independence" "freedom fighters" were aided by the US until recently (possibly still being aided).
The Indians have been fighting the Pakistanis since '49. Have they been assisted by the US?
The French have been fighting Algerian terrorists since the '50s. They have been aiding the government of Algeria in its fight against the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Have you heard of the US assisting the French or the Algerians in their fight against these Islamic terrorists?
What the rest of the world doesn't beleive is that Iraq is the cause of all this terrorism. Iraq is more or less a secular socialist/fascist dictatorship. Islamic fundamentalism plays almost no role in Iraqi politics. Pan-Arabism is a basis for Baathist ideology, but largely as a motivation for modernization of Arab society along European socialist principles.
The rest of the world, seems to believe that Iraq is being attacked by the US for two reasons: -- a) at the behest of Israel, to which Iraq is indeed a threat, and b)in order to seize control of the Iraqi oil fields.
Meanwhile the chief purveyors and supporters of Islamic fundmentalism and Islamic terrorism, the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and Yemen and the Deobandists of Pakistan, are given a pass by the United States.
The US is conducting a "Phony War" on Islamic terrorism, while using it as a pretext for an actual War on a repulsive, but secular, Iraq. No wonder the rest of the world is confused.
Very well put and right on point.
I wonder if they will think up any moe euphemisms.
Were they for it or against it? Silence implies consent.
And, if our friends and neighbors really cared, either the NYTimes would change or another paper of the same status would emerge.
People like to hear what they do, and they like to read what the papers publish.
That is because all Moslems, even if not active terrorists, are silent supporters of the terrorist infrastructure. Don't you think at least some of their religious contributions end up with shady, undesirable organizations? Trust none of them.
Wellllllllll.........actually..........if you need references for that job, you've come to the right place!
Aided? In what respect? I think you may have unwillingly bought into some propaganda. We haven't even given moral support to them (the Uighurs) in the past, and have in fact shared intelligence to help the Chinese control them since 9/11.
We've been absolutely duped as far as that situation goes. Eastern Turkistan is as much an independent nation as Tibet.
Many people are forgetting, since 9/11, that the stabiliity that would come from Chinese domination of Asia would not be preferable to the potential instability that would result from giving sovereignty back to those who deserve to be free from their present overlords.
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