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Al-Arabiya GM: Muslims are main perpetrators of terrorismThe Associated Press Egypt - Muslims worldwide are the main perpetrators of terrorism, a humiliating and painful truth that must be acknowledged, a prominent Arab writer and television executive wrote Saturday, as Middle East media and officials expressed horror at the bloody rebel siege of a Russian school. “Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,” Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television wrote in his daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, “The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!” Al-Rashed ran...

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...

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has said his country had shown weakness in the face of danger and most now respond to the threat of terrorism. "We did not understand the complexity and the danger of the process which was emerging in our country and in the entire world," Putin said of the school hostage crisis in which at least 322 people are now known to have died. "We did not know how to react in the appropriate fashion. We have showed weakness in the face of danger and the weak get beaten up," he said in a televised address. Officials...

THE mass murder of children revolts the human psyche. Herod sending his henchmen to massacre the infants of Bethlehem haunts the Gospels. Nothing in our time was crueler than what the Germans did to children during the Holocaust. Slaughtering the innocents violates a universal human taboo. Or a nearly universal one. Those Muslims who preach Jihad against the West decided years ago that killing Jewish or Christian children is not only acceptable, but pleasing to their god when done by "martyrs." It isn't politically correct to say this, of course. We're supposed to pretend that Islam is a "religion of...

The bodies of 322 dead, of whom 155 are children, have been recovered from the school in Beslan - Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergey Fridinskiy. --- Russian official says Beslan hostage-takers included two women; one man lynched Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Beslan, 4 September: The operation to release hostages and render the terrorists harmless is over in Beslan, the chief of the Russian Federation Federal Security Service [FSB] Directorate for North Ossetia, Valeriy Andreyev, has told journalists. "We can say with all confidence that there have been over 30 terrorists. They are nationals of Russia and of...

Now we know that Al Queda is involved. We know this attack was mastermined by one of Ossama's top men. ----I think this attack was a test. It is a precursor of things to come.----- Unlike gov't buildings there is a school on every corner, ---you can't protect them all!--- This action also puts the gov't on the spot. It demands total capitulation to the terrorists or the kids die. In other words this terror tactic FORCES the gov't to charge. In Russia the terrorists demanded not just the release of comrads in jail, but the complete withdrawal ot troops...

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER Saturday, September 4, 2004 · Last updated 7:51 a.m. PT Putin promises tougher response to terror By JUDITH INGRAM ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a tougher response to terrorism Saturday, saying in a surprising admission of weakness that the Soviet Union's collapse had left the country unable to react to attacks. "Weak people are beaten," he warned. The former KGB spy said in a televised address to the nation that terrorists are waging an "all-out war" against Russia. He said he would enact reforms to make security services more effective, tighten border controls...

Bodies of schoolchildren and hostages killed in a school seizure seen in a hospital morgue in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages. An official said the death toll could be significantly higher than 150. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev) Bodies of schoolchildren and hostages killed in a school seizure seen in a hospital morgue in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages. An official said the death toll could be...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080671.html?oneclick=true  155 children among dead By C. J. Chivers and Steven Lee Myers September 5, 2004 As the death toll in the Russian school siege passed 320 late yesterday, it emerged that the explosives and arms used by the Chechen rebels were smuggled into the building well in advance. "The explosives, weapons and military equipment were taken into the school in summer... when building work was being carried out," Interfax news agency reported a security official as saying. The terrorists first scoured the area looking for a school and then disguised themselves as workers rebuilding the gymnasium. "We found a large...

Russia's Putin Orders Crackdown After School Siege Sept. 4, 2004 — By Richard Ayton and Oliver Bullough BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin ordered a crackdown in southern Russia after a school siege killed at least 250, and warned Chechen sympathizers on Saturday they would be seen as "accomplices of terrorism." The Kremlin leader paid a lightning early morning visit to the traumatized North Ossetia region close to Chechnya where the two-day hostage drama at the school ended on Friday in bloody mayhem with Russian forces battling Chechen militants. "One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to...

September 4, 2004 -- There was a plan, a careful plan of delicate negotiation. But then there were two loud explosions, the plan was blown clean out of the window, and chaos reigned. For what happened next, there was no plan. Ten thousand Russian special forces and Interior Ministry troops ringed Beslan Middle School No. 1. They had been there for three days, and hoped for a peaceful outcome. So, too, did the hundreds of distraught parents held at arm's length by the security cordon. There were already a dozen or so dead within the school, victims of the opening...

[snip]How is it possible that human beings can use the lives of children, hundreds of them, as tools to achieve their own personal political aims? The truth is, the perpetrators of the school siege were not human. They were beasts — savage, bloodthirsty animals. For no human being, no matter how legitimately aggrieved, could so savagely open fire on innocent, helpless kids. It is beyond cowardice. Beyond depravity. By the same token, how is it possible that any nation that considers itself civilized can still ignore — even excuse — the use of terror as a political weapon? And yet,...

September 4, 2004 -- Tragic, despicable, inhumane, cowardly, barbaric, evil and astonishing — the deaths of a hundred or more people including children in a siege at a Russian school sparked strong words for the hostage-takers from world leaders. "This is yet another grim reminder of the lengths to which terrorists will go to threaten the civilized world," President Bush told a campaign rally in Wisconsin yesterday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, "It is hard to express my revulsion at the inhumanity of terrorists prepared to put children and their parents through such...

Putin sees Russian tragedy September 4, 2004 - 2:19PM Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the town where commandos stormed a school in which militants were holding hundreds hostage in a chaotic battle that left at least 95 people dead. "All Russia grieves with you," Putin said during a meeting with local officials in Beslan in the North Ossetia region, broadcast on government television. He said targeting children made the hostage crisis worse than other acts of terrorism: "Even alongside the most cruel attacks of the past this terrorist act occupies a special place because it was aimed at children."...

[snip]As they inevitably do, the terrorists reminded the world of their heartless barbarism. Even if France manages to beg the release of its kidnapped journalists in Iraq, it has begun to sense its vulnerability. And all Europeans with a vestige of sense will recognize that the school seizure in Russia could easily repeat itself in Languedoc or Umbria, Bavaria or Kent. An attack on children is an attack on all of humanity. No matter what differences Western states discover to divide them, the terrorists will bring us together in the end. Their atrocities expose all wishful thinking for what it...

They are not "seperatists", they are not "rebels" - the murderers are ISLAMIC TERRORISTS.BESLAN, Russia (AP) - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding 1,200 hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. An official said the death toll could be significantly higher than 150. Hours after the midday assault, three of the separatist rebels were reportedly still blockaded in a school basement, trading fire with security forces. A Federal Security Service official said militants were still holding hostages - children among them. The school was largely...

RUSSIA'S NIGHTMARE TWO DAYS OF SHEER TERROR By PAUL THOMPSON and JAMES CLENCH THE full horror inflicted on hostages inside the sweltering school gym was revealed by shellshocked survivors last night. For two days 1,200 children and adults stared death in the face after being herded into the gym by terrorists. First, the captors planted two big bombs in the basketball hoops, then trailed cables to smaller devices around the building. Windows were smashed out to restrict the effect of any knockout gas, which was used to end the Moscow theatre siege in 2002. And male hostages were regularly put...

Notorious Chechen Rebel Masterminded School Seige — Report Created: 03.09.2004 19:27 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 19:41 MSK, 13 hours 7 minutes ago MosNews Rebel Chechen leader, Shamil Bassayev, was the mastermind behind the school siege in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, ITAR-TASS news agency reported quoting spokesmen of the Southern Federal District secret service. The operation was organized by Bassayev’s subordinate, Magomet Yevloyev. He is also suspected of having organized the attack in Ingushetia in June. Another infamous Chechen rebel, Doku Umarov, was among the rebels who attacked the school. He was the only one not to wear a...

BESLAN, Russia - The three-day hostage siege at a school in southern Russia ended in chaos and bloodshed Friday, after witnesses said Chechen militants set off bombs and Russian commandos stormed the building. Hostages fled in terror, many of them children who were half-naked and covered in blood. Officials said the toll was at least 250. Early Saturday, 531 people remained hospitalized, including 283 children _ 92 of the youngsters in "very grave" condition, health officials said. Sixty-two hours after the hostage drama began during a celebration marking the first day of the school year, the Russian government said resistance...

United Press International September 3, 2004 Friday 13:23 PM Eastern Time LENGTH: 136 words HEADLINE: Arabs predominate in Beslan attack DATELINE: BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 3 (UPI) BODY: The terrorists who killed more than 150 people and injured at least 456 in a southern Russian school include 10 Arabs, Itar-Tass reported Friday. Aslambek Aslakhanov, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin, said the gunmen were of different nationalities, but 10 of them were from Arab countries and one was from an African nation. They are suspected of gaining entrance into Beslan with a truck hijacked in the Mozdok region of North Ossetia...