Free Republic

A Russian investigator has said grenades fired by surrounding Russian forces could have triggered the Beslan school bloodbath in September 2004. Yuri Savelyev's conclusions contradict the official view that bombs planted by the hostage-takers in the school gym went off just before the gun battle. Mr Savelyev is a member of the Russian parliamentary commission investigating the siege, in which 331 people died. Many of the victims were children, taken hostage by pro-Chechen militants.

MOSCOW: Russia was "a step away" from a civil war in September 1999 when Islamic militants, allegedly sponsored by Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, invaded Daghestan from neighbouring Chechnya, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday. "At the time of incursion of Chechen militants into Daghestan in Sept 1999 a serious thought was given to mass mobilisation in the country, which would have put Russia a step away from a civil war," he was quoted as saying by Radio Mayak at a Kremlin meeting with distinguished school teachers. Putin, who was at that time chief of FSB security service...