Beslan school hostage crisis

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Beslan school hostage crisis
Photos of the victims on the walls of the former SNO
Location	Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania (Russia)
Date	1 September 2004 ~9:30am – 3 September 2004 ~5:00pm (UTC+3)
Attack type	Hostage taking
Deaths	At least 386
Injured	Some 783 severely[1]
Perpetrator(s)	Riyadus Salihiin

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The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre)^[2][3][4] began when a group of armed terrorists, demanding an end to the Second Chechen War, took more than 1,100 schoolchildren and adults hostage on September 1, 2004, at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building using tanks, thermobaric rockets and other heavy weapons.^[5] A series of explosions shook the school, followed by a fire which engulfed the building and a chaotic gunbattle between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. Ultimately, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children.^[6][7] Hundreds more were wounded or missing.

Chechen separatist warlord Shamil Basayev took responsibility for the hostage taking but blamed the outcome on the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The tragedy led to security and political repercussions in Russia, most notably a series of government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening of the powers of President of Russia.^[8] As of 2008, there are many aspects of the crisis still in dispute, including how many militants were involved, their preparations, and whether some of them had escaped. Questions about the government's management of the crisis have also persisted, including disinformation and censorship in news media, poisonings and arrests of journalists who rushed to Beslan,^[9] the nature and content of negotiations with the militants, the responsibility for the bloody outcome, and the government's use of excessive force.^{[10][11][12][5]}

Contents 1 Course of the crisis 1.1 Day one 1.2 Day two 1.3 Day three 1.3.1 The first explosions and the fire in gymnasium 1.3.2 Storming by the Russian forces 2 Aftermath 3 Casualties 4 Responsibility for the hostage taking 4.1 Responsibility 4.2 Motives and demands 4.3 Hostage takers 5 Official investigations and trials 6 Criticism of the Russian government 6.1 Allegations of incompetence and rights violations 6.2 Disinformation and suppression of information 6.3 Government response 7 Other incidents and controversies 8 International response 9 Media portrayal 10 See also 11 References 12 External links 12.1 Photos and videos

[edit] Course of the crisis

See also: Timeline of the Beslan school hostage crisis

[edit] Day one

Comintern Street SNO, located next to the district police station, was one of seven schools in Beslan, with some 60 teachers and several support staff, and more than 800 students.^[13] The gymnasium, where most of the estimated 1,200 hostages were to spend 52 hours, was a recent addition, measuring 10 metres wide and 25 metres long.^[14] There were reports that the men disguised as repairmen had concealed weapons and explosives in the school in during the works in July 2004, but this was later officially refuted. However, witnesses Kazbek Dzarasov and Svetlana Dzebisova have since testified they were made to help their captors remove the hidden weapon caches from the school.^[15][16] There are also claims that the militants in advance constructed a sniper's nest on the sports hall roof.^[17]

It was also claimed that the SNO in Beslan was used by Ossetian militia as an internment camp for Ingush civilians during the 1992 Ossetian-Ingush conflict, and it was chosen as a target because of this connection.^[18][19][20] According to media reports, SNO was one of several buildings in which North Ossetians had held Ingush citizens, many of them women and children; the hostages sat on the gymnasium floor, deprived of food and water, just as the Ossetians would do in the 2004 siege, and several male hostages were hauled and executed outside.^[21] Beslan, like the nearby Mozdok, was also the site of an airfield used by the Russian military aviation for its operation in Chechnya since 1994.^[22]

Hostage-taking

The initial attack took place on September 1, the traditional start of the Russian school year, referred to as "First September" or "Day of Knowledge."^[23] On this day, the children, accompanied by their parents and other relatives, attend ceremonies hosted by their school.^[24] Because of the pupils and family members attending the Day of Knowledge festivities, the number of people in the schools was considerably higher than usual for a normal school day.

At 09:30 local time, a group of several dozen heavily-armed rebel guerrillas wearing military camouflage and black balaclava masks, and in some cases wearing explosive belts, arrived at SNO in a stolen police GAZ van and a GAZ-66 military truck from a camp near the village of Psedakh, Ingushetia. Previously, they had captured an Ingush police Major, Sultan Gurazhev, but released him after reaching Beslan.^[25] Independent experts and witnesses claim that there were, in fact, two groups of terrorists, and that the first group was already at the school when the second group arrived by truck.^[26] At first, some at the school mistook the attackers for Russian forces practicing a security drill.^[27] However, the attackers resolved this misconception by shooting in the air and forcing everybody from the school grounds into the building. During the initial chaos, up to 50 people managed to flee and alert authorities to the situation.^[28] A number of people also managed to hide in the boiler room.^[14] After an exchange of gunfire with local police and an armed civilian, in which it was reported one attacker was shot dead and two were wounded, the attackers seized the school building.^[29]

The attackers took approximately 1,100^[30] to 1,200^[5] hostages. They herded the hostages into the school's gym, and confiscated all mobile phones under the pain of death.^[31] They ordered everyone to speak in Russian and only when spoken to; when a father named Ruslan Betrozov stood to calm people and repeat the rules in the local language, Ossetic, a gunman approached and killed him with a single shot to the head. Another father named Vadim Bolloyev, who refused to kneel, was also shot and then bled to death.^[32] Reportedly, the terrorists also killed a man whom they had caught using his phone.^[14] The bodies were dragged from the sports hall, leaving a trail of blood later visible in the video made by the militants.

After gathering the hostages in the gym, the attackers singled out among the male teachers, school employees and fathers the 17 strongest adults they apparently thought might represent a threat, and took them into another room on the second floor. There, they shot them with automatic rifles, killing all but two of them.^{[33][34][35][36][37]} The militants then forced other hostages to throw the bodies out of the building and to wash the blood off the floor.^[38] Karen Mdinaradze, the Alania football team's cameraman, survived the shooting as well as a mysterious explosion in which he lost his eye.^[39] Apparently, one of the female bombers accidentally detonated her explosive belt, killing another female (it was also claimed the second woman died from a bullet wound^[40]), one male fighter, and several adult hostages. According to the other version, the blast was actually triggered by Polkovnik, the group leader, when he set off the bomb by remote control to kill those who openly disagreed about the child hostages and intimidate other possible dissenters.^[41] Another hostage named Aslan Kudzayev survived by jumping out the window and escaping; the authorities briefly detained him as a suspected terrorist.^[32]

Beginning of the siege

A disorganized security cordon was soon established around the school, consisting of the police (Militsiya) and Russian Army forces; OSNAZ, including the elite Alfa and Vympel units of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB); and the OMON special units of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). A line of three apartment buildings facing the school gym was evacuated and taken over by the special forces. The perimeter they did make was within 250 yards of the school, inside the range of the terrorists' grenade launchers.^[42] No fire-fighting equipment was in position and, despite the previous experiences of the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, there were few ambulances ready.^[14] There was not one sapper among the Russian special forces, despite the building being heavily mined.^[43] The chaos was worsened by the presence of Ossetian militiamen (opolchentsy) and armed civilians among the crowds of relatives who had gathered at the scene (there were perhaps as many as 5,000 of them^[14]).^[44]

The attackers mined the gym and the rest of the building with improvised explosive devices, and surrounded it with tripwires. In a further bid to deter rescue attempts, they threatened to kill 50 hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and to kill 20 hostages for every gunman injured.^[14] They also threatened to blow up the school if government forces attacked. To avoid being overwhelmed by gas attack like their comrades in the 2002 Moscow Dubrovka siege, the rebels quickly smashed the school's windows. The captors prevented hostages from eating and drinking (calling this a "hunger strike") until North Ossetia's President Alexander Dzasokhov would arrive to negotiate with them.^[38] However, the FSB set up their own crisis headquarters (HQ) from which Dzasokhov was excluded, and threatened to arrest him if he tried to go to the school.^[5][45]

The Russian government annonounced that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations towards a peaceful resolution took place on the first and second days, at first led by Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician whom the hostage takers had reportedly asked for by name; Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow siege. According to the witness in court, however, Russian negotiators confused him with Vladimir Rushailo, a Russian security official.^[46] According to Savelyev Report, the secret HQ was preparing the assault, while the "civilian" (official) HQ was looking for a peaceful resolution of the situation through negotiations. In many ways the other HQ restricted the actions of the "civilians", in particular in their attempts to negotiate with the militants.^[47]

At Russia's request, a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council was convened on the evening of September 1, at which the council members demanded "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of the terrorist attack".^[48] U.S. President George W. Bush made a statement offering "support in any form" to Russia.^[49] That night, the hostage takers began exploring the area surrounding the school, preparing for an exit strategy once their demands had been met.^[50]

[edit] Day two

On September 2, 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the hostage-takers proved unsuccessful, and they refused to allow food, water, and medicines to be taken in for the hostages, or for the bodies of the dead to be removed from the front of the school.^[32] The Russian government downplayed the numbers, repeatedly stating there were only 354 hostages; this reportedly angered the attackers who further mistreated their captives.^[51][52] Several officials also said there appeared to be only 15 to 20 militants in the school.^[13]

There was near-total silence from President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the rest of Russia's political leaders.^[53] Only on the second day Putin made his first public comment on the siege during a meeting in Moscow with the King Abdullah II of Jordan: "Our main task, of course, is to save the lives and health of those who became hostages. All actions by our forces involved in rescuing the hostages will be dedicated exclusively to this task."^[54] It was the only public statement by Putin the rest of the crisis until one day after its bloody end.^[53]

At noon, FSB First Deputy Director Colonel General Vladimir Pronichev showed Dzasokhov a decree signed by the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Fradkov appointing North Ossetian FSB chief Major General Valery Andreyev as head of the operational HQ.^[55] In April 2005, however, a Moscow News journalist received photocopies of the interview protocols of Dzasokhov and Andreyev by investigators that revealed that two headquarters had been formed in Beslan: a formal one, upon which was lain all responsibility; and a secret one, which took the real decisions, and Andreyev had never been in charge there.^[56]

In the afternoon, the gunmen allowed the former President of Ingushetia and retired Soviet Army general, Ruslan Aushev, to enter the school building and released 26 hostages personally to him (11 nursing women and 15 children).^[57][36][58] The women's older children were left behind; one mother refused to leave and Aushev carried out her child instead.^[33] The rebels gave Aushev a video tape made in the school and a note with demands from their leader Shamil Basayev who was not himself present in Beslan. The existence of the note was kept secret by the Russian authorities, while the tape was declared being "empty" (later this turned out to be false, too). It was falsely announced that the hostage takers made no demands.^[5] In fact, Basayev demanded recognition of a "formal independence for Chechnya" in the frame of the Commonwealth of Independent States. He also said that although the rebels "had played no part" in Russian apartment bombings, they would now publicly take responsibility for them if needed.^[5] Some Russian officials later attacked Aushev for entering the school, accusing him of colluding with terrorists.^[59]

The lack of food and water took its toll on the young children, many of whom were forced to stand for long periods in the hot, tightly-packed gym. Many children took off their clothing because of the sweltering heat within the gymnasium, which led to rumors of sexual impropriety, though the hostages later explained it was merely due to the stifling heat and being denied any water. Many children fainted, and parents feared they would die. Some hostages drank their own urine. Occasionally, the militants (many of whom took off their masks) took out some of the unconscious children and poured water on their heads before returning them to the gym. Later in the day, some adults also started to faint from fatigue and thirst. Because of the conditions in the gym, when the explosion and gun battle began on the third day, many of the surviving children were so fatigued that they were barely able to flee from the carnage.^[31][60]

At around 15:30, two grenades were fired approximately ten minutes apart by the hostage-takers at security forces outside the school,^[61] setting a police car ablaze, but the Russian forces did not return fire. As the day and night wore on, the combination of stress and sleep deprivation — and possibly drug withdrawal^[62] — made the hostage takers increasingly hysterical and unpredictable. The crying of the children irritated them, and on several occasions crying children and their mothers were threatened with being shot if they would not stop crying.^[27] Russian authorities claimed that the hostage-takers had "listened to German hard rock group Rammstein on personal stereos during the siege to keep themselves edgy and fired up."^[63]

Overnight, a police officer was wounded by shots fired from the school. Talks were broken off, then resumed the next day.^[54]

[edit] Day three

Early on the third day, contact was made with Aslan Maskhadov, separatist President of Ichkeria, by Ruslan Aushev, President Dzasokhov, North Ossetian First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament Taymuraz Mansurov and the First Deputy Chairman Izrail Totoonti.^[45] Totoonti said that both Maskhadov and his Western-based emissary Akhmed Zakayev declared they were ready to fly to Beslan to negotiate with the militants, which was confirmed by Zakayev.^[64] Totoonti said that Maskhadov's sole demand was his unhindered passage to the school; however, the assault began one hour after the agreement on his arrival was made.^[65][66] He also mentioned that journalists from Al Jazeera television offered for three days to participate in the negotiations and enter the school even as hostages, "but their services were not needed by anyone".^[67]

Russian presidential advisor and former police general, Chechen Aslambek Aslakhanov, was also said to be close to breakthrough in the secret negotiations. By the time he left Moscow on the second day, Aslakhanov had accumulated the names of more than 700 well-known Russian figures who were volunteering to enter the school as hostages in exchange for the release of children. Aslakhanov said the hostage-takers agreed to allow him to enter the school the next day at 3 p.m.. Two hours before this, the storming began.^[68]

[edit] The first explosions and the fire in gymnasium

Around 13:00 on September 3, 2004, it was agreed to allow four Emergency Ministry medical workers in two ambulances to remove 20 bodies from the school grounds, as well as to bring the corpse of the killed rebel to the school. However, at 13:03, when the paramedics approached the school, an explosion was heard from the gymnasium and the hostage-takers opened fire, killing two of them.^[38]

The second, "strange-sounding",^[14] explosion was heard 22 seconds later. At 13:05 the fire on the roof of the sports hall started and soon the burning rafters and lagging fell onto the hostages below, many of them wounded but still living.^[47] Eventually, the entire roof collapsed. The flames reportedly killed some 160 people (more than half of the hostage fatalities).^[17]

There were several conflicting versions of the events leading to the storming:

• The negotiator Aslambek Aslakhanov said that the cause of the firing and the subsequent storming of the school had been an accidental explosion.^[69] According to an early official version, one of the bombs had been insecurely attached with adhesive tape, had fallen and then exploded.^[70]

• Ruslan Aushev, another key negotiator during the siege, said that an initial explosion was set off by a hostage-taker accidentally tripping over a wire. As a result, armed civilians, some of them apparently fathers of the hostages, started shooting. Reportedly, no security forces or hostage-takers were shooting at this point, but Aushev concluded that the gunfire led the hostage-takers to believe that the school was being stormed.^[71]

• Igor Senin, president of the association of Alpha Group veterans, said that somebody in the school building probably accidentally set off a hand grenade, after which the terrorists decided they were being attacked and "exploded several other devices" and opened fire.^[72]

• According to another version, used in the 2005 Kesayev Report, a federal forces sniper shot a hostage-taker whose foot was on a dead man's switch detonator, triggering the first blast.^[73][41] The captured terrorist Nur-Pashi Kulayev has testified this, while a local policewoman and hostage Fatima Dudiyeva said she was shot in the hand "from outside" just before the explosion.^[73] (Other media reports said Kesayev actually rejected the sniper shot theory,^[74] saying there were three explosions, including two grenade impacts at 13:03 and 13:05 followed by the actual bomb explosion at 13:29.^[75])

• A fifth version put forward by witnesses in court testified that the initial explosion was triggered by a grenade launcher or flamethrower fired from a nearby building. A Duma member and weapons and explosives expert Yuri Savelyev claims that the exchange of gunfire was not begun by explosions within the school building but by two shots fired from outside the gymnasium (one from a RPO-A Shmel (Bumblebee) flamethrower fired at gymnasium attic, and one from a RShG-1 rocket propelled grenade launcher that destroyed a fragment of the gym wall) and that the home-made explosive devices installed by the rebels did not explode at all.^[16][76][77] The 2006 Savelyev Report, devoting 280 pages to determining responsibility for the initial blast, concludes that the authorities decided to storm the school building, but wanted to create the impression they were acting in response to actions taken by the hostage takers.^[78] Savelyev, a dissenting Torshin commission member, claims these explosions killed many of the hostages and dozens more died in the resulting fire.^[79] Yuri Ivanov, another parliamentary investigator, further contended that the grenades were fired on the direct orders of President Putin.^[80]

• In a sixth version, Alexander Torshin of a Russian parliamentary commission said the terrorists had started the battle by intentionally detonating bombs among the hostages, to the surprise of Russian negotiators and commanders. That statement went beyond previous government accounts, which have typically said the bombs exploded in an unexplained accident.^[81] The December 2006 Torshin Report says the hostage taking was planned as a suicide attack from the beginning and that no storming of the building was prepared in advance.^[78]

[edit] Storming by the Russian forces

Part of the sports hall wall was demolished by the explosions, allowing some 14 hostages to escape,^[14] though a number were killed as a result of crossfire.^[82] Russian officials say militants shot hostages as they ran, and the military fired back.^[73] The government asserts that once the shooting started, soldiers had no choice but to storm the building. However, most of the town's residents have refuted that official version of events.^[83]

Police Lieutenant Colonel Elbrus Nogayev, whose wife and daughter died in the school, said: "I heard a command saying, 'Stop shooting! Stop shooting!' while other soldiers' radios said, 'Attack!'"^[42] As the fighting begun, an oil company president and negotiator Mikhail Gutseriyev (ethnic Ingush) phoned the hostage-takers; he heard "You tricked us!" in answer. Five hours later, Gutseriyev and his interlocutor reportedly had their last conversation, the man said: "The blame is yours and the Kremlin's."^[68]

According to Torshin, the order to start the operation was given by the head of the North Ossetian FSB Valery Andreyev.^[84] However, statements by both Andreyev and the President Dzasokhov indicated that it was deputy FSB directors Vladimir Pronichev and Vladimir Anisimov who were actually in charge of the Beslan operation.^[66] General Andreyev also told North Ossetia's Supreme Court that the decision to use heavy weapons during the assault was made by the head of the FSB's Special Operations Center, Colonel General Aleksandr Tikhonov.^[85]

A chaotic battle broke out as the special forces fought to enter the school. The assault forces included the assault groups of the FSB OSNAZ and the associated troops of the Russian Army and the Russian Interior Ministry, supported by a number of tanks from Russia's 58th Army (commandered by Tikhonov from the military already on September 2), BTR-80 wheeled armoured personnel carriers and armed helicopters, including at least one Mi-24 helicopter gunship.^[43] Many local civilians also joined in the chaotic battle, having brought along their own weapons (at least one of the armed volunteers is known to have been killed). At the same time, regular conscript soldiers reportedly fled the scene as the fighting began; civilian witnesses claimed that the local police also had panicked.^[86][87]

Several powerful RPO-A Shmel rockets were fired at the school from the positions of the special forces. A total of nine empty disposable tubes were later found on the rooftops of nearby apartment blocks.^[88] The use of the Shmel rockets, classified in Russia as flamethrowers and in the West as fuel-air explosive (FAE) weapons, was initially denied, but later admitted by the government.^[11][89] A report by an aide to the military prosecutor of the North Ossetian garrison stated that RPG-26 rocket-propelled grenades were used as well.^[90] The militants too used grenade launchers, effectively firing at the Russian positions in the apartment buildings.^[14]

Witnesses (among them Totoonti^[67] and Kesayev^[78]) and journalists saw two T-72 tanks advance on the school that afternoon, at least one of which fired its 125 mm main gun several times. During the later trial, tank commander Viktor Kindeyev testified the tank fired "one blank shot and six antipersonnel-high explosive shells" on orders from the FSB.^[91] The use of tanks and armoured personnel carriers was eventually admitted by Lieutenant General Viktor Sobolev, commander of the 58th Army.^[43] The Russian government defended the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry, arguing that it was used after surviving hostages escaped from the school. However, this contradicts the eyewitness accounts (including by reporters, photographers and videographers^[92]), as many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves, while others were kept by the militants as human shields and moved through the building. Some 20 to 30 of them were herded into the school cafeteria,^[93] where the hostages were forced to stand at windows and were quickly shot by troops outside, survivor Irina Naldikoyeva said.^[42]

By 15:00, two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. However, fighting was still continuing on the grounds as evening fell, including a group holding out in the basement.^[94] During the battle, a group of 13 hostage-takers broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Several hostage-takers were believed to have entered a nearby two-story building, which was destroyed by tanks and flamethrowers around 21:00, according to the Ossetian committee's findings (Kesayev Report).^[95] Another group of militants appeared to head back over the railway, chased by helicopters into the town.^[14]

Firefighters, who were called by Andreyev only two hours after the fire started,^[4] were not prepared to battle the blaze that raged in the gymnasium. One fire truck arrived after two hours at their own initiative,^[96] and the first water came at 15:28 (nearly two and a half hours after the start of the fire).^[47] Few ambulances were available to transport the hundreds of injured victims, who were driven in private cars.^[42] One suspected terrorist was lynched on the scene by a mob of civilians, an event filmed by the Sky News crew,^[97] while an unarmed militant was captured alive by the OMON troops while trying to hide under their truck (later identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev).

Sporadic explosions and gunfire continued at night despite reports that all resistance by militants has been suppressed,^[98] until some 12 hours after the first explosions.^[99] Early the next day Putin ordered the borders of North Ossetia closed while some hostage takers were apparently still pursued.^[98]

[edit] Aftermath

After the bloody conclusion of the crisis, many of the injured died in the crumbling only hospital in Beslan, badly unprepared to cope with the casualties, before the patients were sent to better-equipped facilities in Vladikavkaz.^[100] There was an inadequate supply of hospital beds, medication, and neurosurgery equipment.^[101] Relatives were not allowed to visit hospitals where the wounded were treated, and doctors were not allowed to use their mobile phones.^[102][103] It was reported that an unknown number of survivors may have died as a result of a government-ordered countermeasure, called Naloxone, meant to counter the effects of Fentanyl-based drugs in the case of the Moscow-type scenario of the storming.^[104]

The day after the storming, bulldozers gathered the debris of the building, including the body parts of the victims, and removed it to a garbage dump.^[5] The first of the many funerals were conducted on September 4, the day after the final assault, with more the following soon including mass burials of 120 people;^[105] the local cemetery was too small and had to be expanded to an adjacent plot of land to accommodate the dead. Three days after the bloody end to the Beslan siege, 180 people were still missing.^[106] Many survivors remained in severe shock and at least one female former hostage committed suicide after returning home.^[107]

Russian President Vladimir Putin reappeared publicly during a hurried trip to the Beslan hospital in the early hours of September 4 to see several of the wounded victims in his only visit to Beslan.^[108] He was later criticised for not meeting the families of victims.^[98] After returning to Moscow, he ordered a two-day period of national mourning for September 6 and September 7, 2004. In his televised speech Putin paraphrased Joseph Stalin saying: "We have shown weakness. The weak ones get beaten."^[38] On the second day of mourning, estimated 135,000 people joined a government-organised rally against terrorism on the Red Square in Moscow.^[109] An estimated 40,000 people gathered in Saint Petersburg's Palace Square.^[110]

The government proceeded to toughen laws on terrorism and expand the powers of law enforcement agencies.^[8] Increased security measures were introduced to Russian cities. More than 10,000 people without proper documents were detained by Moscow police in "terrorist hunt". A high-profile incident of racist police brutality was recorded, as Colonel Magomet Tolboyev, a Hero of Russia, was beaten in the street in Moscow because of his Chechen-sounding name.^[111][112] The Russian public appeared to be generally supportive of increased security measures. A September 16, 2004, Levada-Center poll found 58% of Russians supporting stricter counter-terrorism laws and the death penalty for terrorism, while 33% would support banning all Chechens from entering Russian cities.^[113] In 2005, previously unreleased documents by the national commission in Moscow were made available to Der Spiegel: instead of calling for self-criticism in the wake of the disaster, the commission recommended the Russian government to crack down harder.^[1]

In the wake of Beslan, Vladimir Putin signed a law which replaces the direct election of the heads of the federal subjects of Russia with a system whereby they are proposed by the President of Russia and approved or disapproved by the elected legislative power bodies of the federal subjects.^[114] The election system for Russian Duma was also repeatedly amended, eliminating the election of State Duma members by single-mandate districts.^[115] The Kremlin consolidated its control over the Russian media and increasingly attacked the non-governmental organizations (especially those foreign-founded). Critics allege that the Putin's circle of siloviki used the Beslan crisis as an excuse to increase their grip on Russia.^[116] On September 16, 2004, the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Russia was "pulling back on some of the democratic reforms" while George W. Bush has expressed concern that Putin's latest moves to centralize power "could undermine democracy in Russia". The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has rejected criticism, insisting the measures are an "internal matter."^[117]

[edit] Casualties

Official fatalities
Hostages	334
Other civilians	8
Emergency workers	2
Special forces	11+
Hostage-takers	31
Total	386+
-
Official wounded
Special forces	55
Other	728
Total	783

At least 396 people, mostly hostages, were killed during the crisis. By September 7, 2004, Russian officials revised the death toll down to 334, including 156 children, but close to 200 people remained missing or unidentified.^[118] It was claimed by the locals that 218 of those killed were found with burns, and many of them burned when still alive.^[42] The latest reported fatality was 33-year-old librarian Yelena Avdonina, who succumbed her wounds on December 8, 2006.^[6]

North Ossetia's Minister of Health and Social Reform Mikhail Zurabov said the total number of people who were injured in the crisis exceeded 1,200.^[119] The exact number of people that received ambulatory assistance immediately after the crisis is not known, but is estimated to be around 700. Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer concluded on September 7, 2004, that 90% of the surviving hostages had sustained injuries. At least 437 people, including 221 children, were hospitalized. 197 children were taken to the Children’s Republican Clinical Hospital in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz, and 30 were in resuscitation units in critical condition. Another 150 people were transferred to the Vladikavkaz Emergency Hospital. Sixty-two people, including 12 children, were treated in two local hospitals in Beslan, while six children with heavy wounds were flown to Moscow for specialist treatment.^[120] The majority of the children were treated for burns, gunshot and shrapnel wounds, and mutilation caused by explosions.^[121] Some had to have limbs amputated and eyes removed and many children were permanently disabled. One month after the attack, 240 people (160 of them children) were still being treated in hospitals in Vladikavkaz and in Beslan.^[120][122] Surviving children and parents have received psychological treatment at Vladikavkaz Rehabilitation Centre.^[123]

It is not known how many members of Russia's elite special forces died in the fighting, as official figures ranged from 11^[86] through 12^[59] and 16^[106] to more than 20^[69] killed. The number of names on the memorial in Beslan is only 10.^[124] These killed included all three commanders of the assault group: Colonel Oleg Ilyin and Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Ratzumovsky of Vympel, and Major Alexander Petrov of Alfa.^[125] At least 30 suffered serious wounds.^[72]

[edit] Responsibility for the hostage taking

[edit] Responsibility

Initially, the identity and origin of the attackers was not clear. It was widely assumed from day two that they were separatists from nearby Chechnya, but Putin's aide Aslakhanov denied it: "They were not Chechens. When I started talking with them in Chechen, they had answered: 'We do not understand, speak Russian'," he said.^[126] However, freed hostages said that the hostage-takers spoke Russian with accents typical for peoples from the Caucasus.^[14]

Even as in the past Putin has rarely hesitated to blame Chechens for acts of terror, this time he avoided linking the attack with the Second Chechen War launched by him in September 1999. Instead, the Russian President blamed the crisis on the "direct intervention of international terrorism", ignoring the nationalist roots of the crisis.^[127] The Russian government sources initially claimed that nine of the terrorists in Beslan were of Arab descent and one was a black African (called "a negro" by Andreyev),^[1][128] through only two Arabs were identified later.^[38] Independent analysts such as the Moscow political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said Putin at this moment tried to minimize the number and scale of Chechen terrorist attacks, rather than to exaggerate them like he did in the past."^[25] Putin appeared to connect the events to the U.S.-led "War on Terrorism",^[82] but at the same time has accused the West of indulging terrorists.^[117]

On September 17, 2004, radical Chechen guerrilla commander Shamil Basayev issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Beslan school siege,^[129] saying his Riyadus-Salikhin "martyr battalion" had carried out this attack. Basayev also claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist bombings in Russia in the weeks before Beslan. The Beslan crisis was strikingly similar to the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis and the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, in which thousands of civilians were held hostage by the Chechen rebels personally led by (Budyonnovsk) or answering to him. About Beslan, Basayev said that he had miscalculated the Kremlin's determination to end the crisis by all means possible.^[8] He said that he originally planned to seize at least one school in either Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but lack of funds forced him to pick North Ossetia, the "Russian garrison in the North Caucasus". Basayev blamed the Russian authorities for "a terrible tragedy" in Beslan.^[130] He said he was "cruelly mistaken" and that he was "not delighted by what happened there", but also added: "We are planning more Beslan-type operations in the future because we are forced to do so."^[131] However, as of 2008, it was the last major act of terrorism in Russia, as Basayev was soon persuaded to give up indiscriminate attacks by Abdul-Halim Sadulayev,^[132] who made Basayev his second-in-command but banned hostage taking, kidnapping, and operations targeting civilians.^[133]

The moderate Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov immediately denied that his forces were involved in the siege, calling it "a blasphemy" for which "there is no justification".^[134] Maskhadov described the perpetrators of Beslan as "madmen" driven out of their senses by Russian acts of brutality.^[135] He condemned the action and all attacks against civilians via a statement issued by his envoy Akhmed Zakayev in London, blamed it on what he called a radical local group,^[136] and agreed to the North Ossetian proposition to act as a negotiator. Later, he also called on western governments to initiate peace talks between Russia and Chechnya and added to "categorically refute all accusations by the Russian government that President Maskhadov had any involvement in the Beslan event."^[137] In response, Putin has vowed not to negotiate with "child-killers",^[110] comparing the calls for the negotiations with the appeasement of Hitler,^[117] and put a $10 million bounty on Maskhadov (same amount as he put for Basayev).^[138] Maskhadov was killed by the Russian commandos in Chechnya on March 8, 2005,^[139] and buried in a secret location.^[140]

Shortly after the crisis, official Russian sources stated that the attackers were part of an international group led by Basayev that included a number of Arabs with connections to al-Qaeda, and said they picked up phone calls in Arabic from the Beslan school to Saudi Arabia and another undisclosed Middle Eastern country.^[141] Two English/Algerians are among the identified terrorists who actively participated in the attack: Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia. Another UK citizen named Kamel Rabat Bouralha, arrested while trying to leave Russia immediately following the attack, was suspected to be a key organizer. All three were linked to the Finsbury Park Mosque of north London.^[142][143] The al-Qaeda involvement claims were not repeated since.^[17]

According to the Russian government, the following people were planners and financiers of the attack:

• Shamil Basayev - Chechen national, took ultimate responsibility for the attack, died in Ingushetia in July 2006.
• Kamel Rabat Bouralha - British-Alegerian suspected of organizing the attack, detained in Chechnya in September 2004.
• Abu Omar al-Saif - Saudi national and accused financer,^[144] died in Dagestan in December 2005.
• Abu Zaid - Kuwaiti national and accused organizer, died in Ingushetia in February 2005.

In November 2004, 28-year-old Akhmed Merzhoyev and 16-year-old Marina Korigova of Sagopshi, Ingushetia, were arrested by the Russian authorities in connection with Beslan. Merzhoyev was charged with providing food and equipment to the hostage-takers, and Korigova with having possession of a phone that Tsechoyev had phoned multiple times.^[145] Korigova was released when her defence attorney showed that she was given the phone by an acquaintance after the crisis.^[146]

[edit] Motives and demands

Russian negotiators say the attackers never explicitly stated their demands, although they did have notes handwritten by one of the hostages on a school notebook, in which they spelled out demands of full troop withdrawal from Chechnya and recognition of Chechen independence. The hostage-takers in Beslan were reported to have made the following demands:

• Withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and independence for Chechnya.
• Presence of the following people in the school:
  • Aleksander Dzasokhov, president of North Ossetia,
  • Murat Zyazikov, president of Ingushetia,
  • Ruslan Aushev, former president of Ingushetia,
  • Leonid Roshal, a renowned pediatrician.

Alternatively, instead of Roshal and Aushev, the hostage takers named Vladimir Rushailo and Alu Alkhanov, pro-Moscow President of Chechnya.^[46] Dzasokhov and Zyazikov did not come, while Aushev entered the school and negotiated the release of 26 hostages. Dzasokhov claimed that "a very high-ranking general from the Interior Ministry said, 'I have received orders to arrest you if you try to go'".^[45] Zyazikov, it was said later, was "sick".^[68]

Aslakhanov said that the guerrillas also demanded the release of some 28 to 30 mostly Ingush insurgents jailed after the June raids in Ingushetia.^[13][17]

The 1 September 11:00-11:30 letter sent along with a hostage ER doctor:^[147] (The case papers of the Nur-Pashi Kulayev's criminal trial. File pages 196-198, the vetting protocol. Cited at the trial session January 19, 2006.^[148])

8-928-738-33-374

We request the republic's president Dzasokhov, the president of Ingushetia Ziazikov, the children's doctor Rashailo for negotiations. If anyone of us is killed, we'll shoot 50 people. If anyone of us is wounded, we'll kill 20 people. If 5 of us are killed, we'll blow up everything. If the light, communication are cut off for a minute, we'll shoot 10 people.

The telephone number according to pravdabeslana.ru; the federal committee reported 8-928-728-33-74. The hostage who was made to write the note misspelled doctor Roshal's name.

The 1 September 16:00-16:30 letter brought by the same female hostage: According to the federal committee report this note contained a corrected phone number (ending with 47) and addition of Aushev to the list of requested persons.

The 2 September 16:45 letter sent along with Ruslan Aushev: (A note hand-written on a quad ruling notebook sheet sized 32 by 20 cm. Source: ibidem. Pages 189-192, the vetting protocol. Pages 193-194, a photocopy of this note.)

From Allah's slave Shamil Basayev to President Putin.

Vladimir Putin, it wasn't you who started this war. But you can finish it if you have enough courage and determination of de Gaulle. We offer you a sensible peace based on mutual benefit by the principle—independence in exchange for security. In case of troops withdrawal and acknowledgement of independence of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, we are obliged not to make any political, military, or economic treaties with anyone against Russia, not to accommodate foreign military bases on our territory even temporarily, not to support and not to finance groups or organizations carrying out a military struggle against RF, to be present in the united ruble zone, to enter CIS. Besides, we can sign a treaty even though a neutral state status is more acceptable to us. We can also guarantee a renunciation of armed struggle against RF by all Muslims of Russia for at least 10 to 15 years under condition of freedom of faith. We are not related to the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, but we can take responsibility for this in an acceptable way.

The Chechen people is leading a nation-liberating struggle for its freedom and independence, for its self-protection rather than for destruction or humiliation of Russia. We offer you peace, but the choice is yours.

Allahu Akbar

Signature

30 August

Later, Basayev said there was also an alternative option: if President Putin submitted a letter of resignation, the captors would "release all the children and go back to Chechnya with others."^[130]

[edit] Hostage takers

Number and fate

According to the official version of events, 32 attackers participated directly, two of whom were women, and one of whom was taken alive while the rest were killed. The number and identity of attackers remains a controversial topic, fueled by the often contradictory government statements and official documents. The September 3-4 government statements said total of 26-27 militants were killed during the siege.^[98] At least four militants, including two women, died prior to the storming.

Many of the surviving hostages and eyewitnesses claim there were many more attackers, some of whom may have escaped. It was also claimed or alleged that three hostage takers were captured alive, including the leader Vladimir Khodov and a female militant.^[149] Witness testimonies during the Kulayev trial involved the reported presence a number of Slavs among the hostage-takers who were not seen among the bodies of the terrorists killed during the assault by Russian security forces, including a "sniper" who seemed to be in charge.^[90]

• Kesayev Report (2005) estimated that about 50 fighters took part in the siege, based on witness accounts and the number of weapons left at the scene.^[78]
• Savelyev Report (September 2006) said there were from 58 to 76 hostage takers, of which many managed to escape by slipping past the cordon around the school.^[78]
• Torshin Report (December 2006) determined that 34 militants were involved, of which 32 entered the school and 31 died there, and says the two accomplices remain at large (one being Yunus Matsiyev, a bodyguard of Basayev).^[78]

According to Basayev,

Thirty-three mujahideen took part in Nord-West. Two of them were women. We prepared four [women] but I sent two of them to Moscow on August 24. They then boarded the two airplanes that blew up. In the group there were 12 Chechen men, two Chechen women, nine Ingush, three Russians, two Arabs, two Ossetians, one Tartar, one Kabardinian and one Guran. The Gurans are a people who live near Lake Baikal who are practically Russified.^[150]

Basayev said an FSB agent (Khodov) had been sent undercover to the rebels to persuade them to carry out an attack on a target in North Ossetia's capital, Vladikavkaz, and that the group was allowed to enter the region with ease, because the FSB planned to capture them at their destination in Vladikavkaz. He also claimed that another attacker had survived the siege and escaped.^[11]

On September 6, 2004, the name and identity of seven of the assailants became known, after forensic work over the weekend and interviews with surviving hostages and a captured assailant. (The forensic tests also established that 21 of the terrorists took heroin as well as morphine in a normally fatal amount;^[151] the investigation cited the use of drugs as a reason for the militants’ ability to continue fighting despite being badly wounded and presumably in great pain.) In November 2004, Russian officials announced that 27 of the 32 attackers had been identified. However, in September 2005, the lead prosecutor against Nur-Pashi Kulayev stated that only 22 of the 32 bodies had been identified,^[152] leading to further confusion over which identities have been confirmed.

Identified leaders

• Ruslan Tagirovich Khuchbarov (32) [also spelled Khochubarov], nicknamed "Polkovnik/Colonel" - An ethnic Ingush and native of Galashki, Ingushetia. He was the reputed group leader (disputed identity), possibly escaped and at large.^[153] Basayev identified him as "Col. Orstkhoyev" (Polkovnik means Russian for "Colonel").^[130][17] Reportedly the hostage-takers referred to him as Ali. He had led the negotiations on behalf of the hostage takers. Initially reported to be Ali Taziyev, a former Ingush policeman-turned-rebel who was declared legally dead in 2000.^{[154][155][156]} This was later refuted by the Russian procurators^[157] In the conversations, "Ali" claimed his wife and five children were killed by indiscriminate bombing in Chechnya.^[158] His body was reportedly identified after he was killed during the storming of the school. At first investigaters alleged this was the same person as Akhmed Yevloyev, an Ingush rebel leader, but those reports were declared incorrect later (although he had similar features as Yevloyev, his facial profile was a lot different, and Yevloyev turned out to be still alive^[159]).
• Vladimir Khodov "Abdullah" (28) - An ethnic Ossetian-Ukrainian from nearby Elkhotovo, former pupil of the Beslan SNO. Some of the survivors described him as the scariest and most aggressive of all the militants.^[158] Khodov was wanted for a series of bomb attacks in Vladikavkaz. Basayev has since said Khodov was a FSB double agent code-named Putnik ("Traveller") sent to infliltrate the rebel movement.^[160] (Not to confuse with the head of Beslan administration, also named Vladimir Khodov.)
• "Fantomas" - An unidentified bald Slav (he took off his mask), thought to having been a bodyguard to Shamil Basayev. Nationality unknown but allegedly an ethnic Russian.^[153][161]

Identified militants

Some of the male hostage-takers, who numbered at least 30, were tentatively identified by the Russian government as:

• Khizir-Ali Akhmedov (30) - A native of Chechnya, from Bilto-Yurt.^[119]
• Rustam Atayev (25) - Native of Psedkah, Ingushetia, ethnic Chechen. His 12-year-old brother was murdered in 2002 by unidentified men in camouflage along with two other boys in Grozny.^[162][163]
• Rizvan Vakhitovich Barchashvili (26) - Native of Nesterovskaya, a cossack village in Ingushetia. Had changed his name to Aldzbekov. Body identified by DNA.^[164]
• Usman Magomedovich Aushev (33) - Ingush from Ekazhevo, Ingushetia.^[165][166]
• Yacine Benalia - A British-Algerian who had already been reported killed earlier.^[167]
• Adam Magomed-Khasanovich Iliyev (20) - An Ingush from Malgobek, Ingushetia, arrested and released a year before for illegal arms possession.^[165][166]
• Ibragim Magomedovich Dzortov (28) - An Ingush from Nazran, Ingushetia.^[165][166]
• Ilnur Gainullin (23) - An ethnic Tatar "from a good family" in Moscow.^[26]
• Adilgirey Beksultanovich Gatagazhev (29) - An Ingush from Sagopshi, Ingushetia.^[165][166]
• Sultan Kamurzayev (27) - A Chechen from Kazakhstan.^[119] Other sources say he's from Nazran, Ingushetia, and that he was arrested in 2000 as a rebel fighter and later released.^[166]
• Magomed Khochubarov (21) - An Ingush from Nazran, native of Surkhakhi, Ingushetia, had a conviction for the illegal possession of weapons. Also spelled Magomet.^[119][166]
• Iznaur Kodzoyev - An Ingush from Kantyshevo, Ingushetia. His cousin claimed he saw him in Kantyshevo on the second day of the hostage crisis.^[168] In August 2005 the Russian forces in Igushetia killed a man identified as Iznaur Kodzoyev, who they said was one of the 32 hostage takers, despite the fact that his body was identified among these killed in Beslan. Kodzoyev was also previously announced dead by the Russians months before the Beslan crisis.^[169][150]
• Khan-Pashi Kulayev (31) - A Chechen from Engenoi one-armed older brother of Nur-Pashi, a former bodyguard of Basayev, released from the Russian prison before the attack.^[170]
• Nur-Pashi Kulayev (24) - A Chechen from Engenoi recruited to help his brother Han-Pashi despite (as he maintained) being recently admitted into the forces of Ramzan Kadyrov. Captured in Beslan and sentenced to life in prison.
• Adam Kushtov (17) - An Ingush who fled the 1992 ethnic cleansing in North Ossetia.^[171]
• Abdul-Azim Labazanov (31) - A Chechen born in Kazakhstan, initially fought on the federal side in the First Chechen War before defecting to Dokka Umarov's group.^[119]
• Osman Larussi - A British-Algerian, who had already been reported killed earlier.^[167]
• Arsen Merzhoyev (25) - A native of Engenoi in Chechnya.^[172]
• Adam Akhmedovich Poshev - (22) An Ingush from Malgobek, Ingushetia.^[165][166]
• Mayrbek Said-Aliyevich Shaybekhanov (25) - A Chechen from Engenoi who lived in Psedakh, Ingushetia, arrested in Ingushetia and then released shortly before the school attack. Also spelled Mairbek Shebikhanov.^{[173][174][165][166]}
• Muslim Said-Aliyevich Shaybekhanov (20) - A Chechen from Engenoi who lived in Psedakh, Ingushetia.^[175][166]
• Buran Tetradze - (31) - A Georgian, native of Rustavi in Georgia, whose identity/ existence is refuted by security minister of Georgia.^[176]
• Issa Torshkhoyev (26/29) - An Ingush native of Malgobek, Ingushetia, wanted since the shootout in 2003 when his home was raided by the police. His family asserted that his interest in joining the Chechen militant movement was incited when Torshkhoyev witnessed five of his close friends being killed by Russian security forces during the raid on his home. His father, who was brought in to identify his body, reportedly claimed that the body was not that of his son. Also spelled Isa/Torshkhoev.^{[177][178][165]}
• Issa Zhumaldinovich Tarshkhoyev (23) - An Ingush from Malgobek, Ingushetia, arrested for armed robbery in 1999 but later released.^[165][179]
• Bei-Alla Tsechoyev (31) - An Ingush, brother of Musa, had a prior conviction for possessing illegal firearms. Also spelled Bay or Ala.
• Musa Tsechoyev (35) - An Ingush, brother of Bei-Alla, native of Sagopshi in Ingushetia, owned the GAZ-66 truck that drove the hostage-takers to the school.
• Timur Magomedovich Tsokiyev (31) - An Ingush from Sagopshi, Ingushetia. Also spelled Tsokiev.^[165][166]
• Aslan Akhmedovich Yaryzhev (22) - An Ingush from Malgobek, Ingushetia.^[165][166]

In April 2005, the identity of the shahidka female suicide bombers was revealed:

• Roza Nagayeva (30) - A Chechen woman from the village of Kirov-Yurt in Chechnya's Vedensky District, sister of Amnat Nagayeva, who is suspected of being the suicide bomber having blown up one of the two Russian airliners brought down on August 24, 2004. Roza Nagayeva has previously seemingly mistakenly been named as having carried out the bombing of Moscow's Rizhskaya metro station on August 31, 2004.^[180]
• Mairam Taburova (27) - A Chechen woman from the village of Mair-Tub in Chechnya's Shalinsky District. Also spelled Maryam.^[180][165]
• Khaula Nazirov (45) - A woman From Grozny, her husband had supposedly been tortured to death by Russian security forces; her 18-year-old son and her 16-year-old daughter, along with their cousins, were killed a year earlier when Russia security forces bombed a school in Chechnya.^[181]

[edit] Official investigations and trials

Kulayev's interrogation and trial

The captured militant, 24-year-old Nur-Pashi Kulayev, born in Chechnya, was identified by former hostages. The state-controlled Channel One showed fragments of his interrogation. Kulayev said the group was led by a Chechnya-born militant nicknamed Polkovnik and by the North Ossetia native Vladimir Khodov. According to Kulayev, Polkovnik shot another militant and detonated two female suicide bombers because they objected to capturing children.^[182]

In May 2005, Kulayev was a defendant in a court in the republic of North Ossetia. He was charged with murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and other crimes and pleaded guilty on seven of the counts;^[183] many former hostages denounced the trial as a "[smoke screen" and "farce".^[59] Some of the relatives of the victims, who used the trial in their attempts to accuse the authorities, even called for a pardon for Kulayev so he can speak freely about what happened.^[73] The director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, was summoned to give evidence, but did not attend.^[17] Ten days later, on May 26, 2006, Nur-Pashi Kulayev was sentenced to life in prison; no appeal was filed by either the defendant or prosecutor.^[184] Kulayev later disappeared in the Russian prison system and it is unclear if he's still alive.^[185]

Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Nikolai Shepel, acting as deputy prosecutor at the trial of Kulayev, found no fault with the security forces in handling the hostage crisis:^[30] "According to the conclusions of the investigation, the expert commission did not find any violations that could be responsible for the harmful consequences," he claimed.^[186] Shepel acknowledged that commandos fired flamethrowers into the packed Beslan school gym, but said that this could not have sparked the fire that caused most of deaths.^[89] He said the troops did not use napalm grenades.^[11]

Investigation by federal prosecutors

Family members of the victims of the attacks have accused the security forces of incompetence, and have demanded that authorities be held accountable. Putin personally promised to Mothers of Beslan it would be an "objective investigation". On December 26, 2005, Russian prosecutors investigating the siege on the school declared that authorities had made no mistakes whatsoever.^[187]

Torshin's parliamentary commission

At a press conference with foreign journalists on September 6, 2004, Vladimir Putin rejected the prospect of an open public inquiry, but cautiously agreed with an idea of a parliamentary investigation led by the Duma. He warned, though, that the latter might turn into a "political show".^[188][189] In November 2004, the Interfax news agency reported Alexander Torshin, head of the parliamentary commission, as saying that there was evidence of involvement by "a foreign intelligence agency;" he declined to say which.^[190]

On December 22, 2006, the Russian parliamentary commission ended their investigation into the incident. They concluded that the number of gunmen who stormed the school was 32 and laid much blame on the North Ossetian police, stating that there was a severe shortcoming in security measures. Torshin also criticized authorities for under-reporting the number of hostages involved.^[191] In addition, the commission said the attack on the school was premeditated by Chechen rebel leadership including Aslan Maskhadov. In another controversial move, the commission claimed that the shoot-out that ended the siege was instigated by the hostage takers, not security forces.^[192] About the use of flamethowers, Torshin said that "international law does not prohibit using them against terrorists."^[193] Ella Kesayeva, an activist who leads Beslan support group, suggested that the report was meant as a signal that Putin and his circle were no longer interested in having a discussion about crisis.^[81]

On August 28, 2006, Yuri Savelyev, Russian MP and member of the official parliamentary inquiry panel, publicized his own report which he said is proving that Russian forces deliberately stormed the school using maximum force. According to Savelyev, a weapons and explosives expert, special forces fired rocket-propelled grenades without warning as a prelude to an armed assault, ignoring apparently ongoing negotiations. In February 2007, two members of the commission (Savelyev and Yuri Ivanov) denounced the investigation as a cover-up, and the Kremlin's official version of events as fabricated. They refused to sign off on the Torshin's report.^[80]

Trials of the local police officials

Three local policemen of the Pravoberezhny District ROVD (district militsiya unit) were the only officials who put on trial over the massacre, accused of failing to stop gunmen seizing the school and charged with negligence.^[194] On May 30, 2007, Pravoberezhny Court's judge granted an amnesty to them. In response, a group of dozens local women then ransacked the courtroom, smashing windows, overturning furniture and tearing down a Russian flag. Victims' groups said the trial had been a whitewash designed to protect their superiors from blame.^[195] The victims of the Beslan terror act said they are going to appeal against the court judgement.^[196]

In June 2007, a court in Kabardino-Balkaria charged two Malgobeksky District ROVD police officials (Mukhazhir Yevloyev and Akhmed Kotiyev) with negligence, accusing them of failing to prevent the attackers from setting up their training and staging camp in Ingushetia. The two pleaded innocent, the court said.^[197] The acquittal verdict came in October 2007, and was upheld by the Supreme Court of Ingushetia in March 2008. The victims said they are going to appeal against the decision to the European Court for Human Rights.^[198]

[edit] Criticism of the Russian government

[edit] Allegations of incompetence and rights violations

The handling of the siege by Vladimir Putin's administration was criticized by a number of observers and grassroots organisations, amongst them the Mothers of Beslan and Voice of Beslan groups.^[199] Soon after the crisis, the independent MP Vladimir Ryzhkov blamed "the top leadership".^[200] Initially, the European Union also criticized the response.^[201]

• Criticism, including by Beslan residents (the survivors and the relatives of the victims), centered on the allegations that the storming of the school was ruthless, citing the confirmed use of heavy weapons, such as RPO flamethrowers and tanks.^{[202][203][204]} (Pavel Felgenhauer has gone further and accused the government of also firing rockets from an Mi-24 attack helicopter,^[205] a claim that the authorities flatly deny.^[43]) Some human rights activists claim that at least 80 percent of the hostages were killed by indiscriminate Russian fire.^[5]

• There were serious accusations that federal officials had not earnestly tried to negotiate with the attackers (including the alleged threat from Moscow to arrest President Dzasokhov if he came to negotiate) and deliberately provided incorrect and inconsistent reports of the situation to the media (detailed below).

• The provincial government and police were criticized by the locals for having allowed the attack to take place, especially since police roadblocks on the way to Beslan were removed shortly before the hostage taking.^[206] Many blamed rampant corruption allowing militants to simply bribe their way through the checkpoints (in fact, this was even what they openly boasted to their hostages),^{[207][208][73]} while others say the terrorists used the back roads used by smugglers in collusion with police.^[209] It was also alleged the federal police knew of the planned attack (according to internal police documents obtained by Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow MVD knew about the planned attack four hours in advance, having learned this from a militant captured in Chechnya).^[5][210]

• In addition, critics charged that the authorities did not organize the siege properly, including failing to keep the scene secure from entry by civilians,^[71] while the emergency services were not prepared during the 52 hours of the crisis.^[4] The Russian government has been also heavily criticized by many of the local people who, days and even months after the siege, did not know whether their children were alive or dead (the hospitals were isolated from the outside world). Human remains were found by a local man in the garbage landfill at the outskirts of Beslan in 2005, which prompted further outrage.^[211][212]

The report by Yuri Savelyev, a dissiding parliamentary investigator and one of Russia's leading missile scientists,^[213] blamed the responsibility for the final massacre on actions of the Russian forces and the highest-placed officials in the federal government (namely President Putin).

A separate public inquiry headed by Stanislav Kesayev, deputy speaker of the North Ossetian regional parliament, concluded on November 29, 2005, that both local and federal law enforcement agencies and officials mishandled the situation.^[214]

On June 26, 2007, 89 relatives of victims have lodged a joint complaint against Russia with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The applicants say their rights were violated both during the hostage-taking and the trials that followed.^[215][197] ECHR was flooded by a complaints against Russia, many of them from Chechnya.

[edit] Disinformation and suppression of information

See also: Russian government censorship of Chechnya coverage

The Moscow daily Moskovskiy Komsomolets run a rubric headlined Chronicle of Lies, detailing various initial reports put out by government officials about the hostage taking, which later turned out to be false.^[110] According to a poll by Levada-Center conducted a week after Beslan crisis, 83% of polled Russians believed that the government was hiding at least a part of the truth about the Beslan events from them.^[216]

Russian television reporting and false information

In opposition to the coverage on foreign television news channels (such as CNN and the BBC), the crisis was not broadcasted live by the state-owned all three major Russian television networks.^[115] The two main state-owned broadcasters, Channel One and Rossiya, did not even interrupt their regular programming following the school seizure.^[200] After explosions and gunfire started on the third day, NTV Russia (the main television channel owned by Gazprom) shifted away from the scenes of mayhem to broadcast a World War II soap opera.^[53]

According to the poll by Ekho Moskvy radio station, 92% of the people polled said that Russian TV channels concealed parts of information.^[102]

Russian state-controlled television only reported official information about the number of hostages during the course of the crisis. The number of 354 people was persistently given, as initially stated by Lev Dzugayev, the press secretary of the President of North Ossetia (after the crisis, Dzugayev was promoted and made Minister for Culture and Mass Communications^[217]) and Valery Andreyev, the chief of the republican FSB (through it was later claimed that Dzugayev only disseminated information given to him by "Russian presidential staff who were located in Beslan from September 1").^[66]

This deliberately false figure had grave consequences for the treatment of the hostages by their angered captos (terrorists were even reported saying "Maybe we should kill enough of you to get down to that number") and contributed to the declaration of "hunger strike".^[191][42] The government disinformation also sparked the incidents of violence by the local residents, aware of the real numbers, against the members of Russian and foreign media.^[102]

On September 8, 2004, several leading Russian and international human rights organizations – including Amnesty International, International Helsinki Federation, Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial, and Human Rights Watch – issued a joint statement in which they pointed out the responsibility that Russian authorities bore in disseminating false information:

"We are also seriously concerned with the fact that authorities concealed the true scale of the crisis by, inter alia, misinforming Russian society about the number of hostages. We call on Russian authorities to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of the Beslan events which should include an examination of how authorities informed the whole society and the families of the hostages. We call on making the results of such an investigation public."^[102]

Incidents involving Russian and foreign journalists

In several incidents reporters critical of the Russian government could not get to Beslan during the crisis. They included Andrey Babitsky, a Russian journalist with the Radio Free Europe, who was indicted on hooliganism after a brawl with two men who picked a fight with him in the Moscow Vnukovo Airport and sentenced to a 15-day arrest.^[218][219] The late Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had negotiated during the 2002 Moscow siege, was twice prevented by the authorities from boarding a flight. When she eventually succeeded, she fell into a coma after being poisoned aboard an airplane bound to Rostov-on-Don.^[102][220]

According to the report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), several correspondents were detained in Beslan (including Russians Anna Gorbatova and Oksana Semyonova from Novye Izvestia, Madina Shavlokhova from Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Elena Milashina from Novaya Gazeta, and Simon Ostrovskiy from The Moscow Times). Several foreign journalists were also briefly detained, including a group of journalists from Polish Gazeta Wyborcza, French Libération and British The Guardian. The chief of the Moscow bureau of the Arab TV channel Al Jazeera was framed into the possession of a round of ammunition at the airfield in Mineralnye Vody.^[102]

Many foreign journalists were exposed to pressure from the security forces and the materials were confiscated from TV crews from ZDF and ARD (Germany), AP Television News (USA), and Rustavi-2 (Georgia). The crew of Rustavi-2 was arrested; the Georgian Minister of Health said that the correspondent Nana Lezhava, who had been kept for fives days in the Russian pre-trial detention centers, had been poisoned with dangerous psychotropic drugs (like Politkovskaya, Lezhava passed out after being given a cup of tea). The crew from another Georgian TV channel Mze was expelled from Beslan.^[102]

Raf Shakirov, chief editor of the Izvestia newspaper, was forced to resign after criticism by the major shareholders of both style and content of the September 4, 2004 issue.^[221] In contrast to the less emotional coverage by other Russian newspapers, Izvestia had featured large pictures of dead or injured hostages. It also expressed doubts about the government's version of events.^[222]

Secret video materials

The video tape made by the terrorists and given to Ruslan Aushev on September 2 was declared being "blank" by the government,^[223] even though a fragment was shown on Russian NTV television several days after the crisis.^[224] (See the video here.) Another fragment of the tape was acquired by media and publicised in January 2005.^[33][207] (See the video here.) Aushev himself did not watch the tape before he gave it away.

In July 2007, the Mothers of Beslan asked the FSB to declassify video and audio archives on Beslan, saying there should be no secrets in the investigation.^[225] They didn't receive any answer to this request.^[226]

Same month, the Mothers organization have disclosed a video tape they received anonymously, that they said proves Russian security forces started the massacre by firing rocket-propelled grenades on the besieged building.^[227] The film, apparently showing the prosecutors and military experts discussing the militant shrapnel-based bombs and surveying structural damage in the school in Beslan, had been kept secret by the authorities for nearly three years, before being officially released by the Mothers on September 4, 2007.^[228][229]

[edit] Government response

In general, the criticism was denied by the Russian government. President Vladimir Putin specifically dismissed the foreign criticism as Cold War mentality and said that the West wants to "pull the strings so that Russia won't raise its head."^[115]

To address doubts, Putin launched a Duma parliamentary investigation led by Alexander Torshin,^[230] resulting in the report which criticized the federal government only indirectly^[231] and instead put blame for "a whole number of blunders and shortcomings" on local authorities.^[232] The findings of the federal and the North Ossetian commissions differed widely in many main aspects.^[78] Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov, sent by Putin in September 2005 to investigate the circumstances, concluded on the 30th of the same month that "the actions of the military personnel were justified, and there are no grounds to open a criminal investigation."^[233]

Three local top officials lost their posts in the aftermath of the tragedy:^[234]

• North Ossetian Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev resigned shortly after the crisis, saying that after what happened in Beslan, he "don't have the right to occupy this post as an officer and a man."^[235][98]
• Valery Andreyev, the chief of the Ossetia's FSB, also submitted his resignation soon after. However, he was later named Deputy Rector of the FSB Academy in Moscow, a prestigious position.^[236][55]
• Alexander Dzasokhov, the head of North Ossetia, resigned his post in May 31, 2005, after a series of demonstrations against him in Beslan and a public pressure from Mothers of Beslan on Putin to have him dismissed.^[110][237]

Five Ossetian and Ingush police officers were also tried and subsequently amnestied or acquitted.

As of April 2008, no Russian federal official suffered any consequences in connection with the Beslan events.

[edit] Other incidents and controversies

• Nur-Pashi Kulayev claimed that attacking a school and targeting mothers and young children was not merely coincidental, but was deliberately designed for maximum outrage with the purpose of igniting a wider war in the Caucasus. According to this provocation theory, the attackers hoped that the mostly Orthodox Ossetians would attack their mostly Muslim Ingush and Chechen neighbours to seek revenge, encouraging ethnic and religious hatred and strife throughout the North Caucasus.^[238] North Ossetia and Ingushetia had previously been involved in a brief, but bloody conflict in 1992 over disputed land in the North Ossetian Prigorodny District, leaving up to 1,000 dead and some 40,000 to 60,000 displaced persons, mostly Ingush.^[38] Indeed, shortly after the Beslan massacre, 3,000 people demonstrated in Vladikavkaz calling for revenge against the ethnic Ingush.^[38]

• The expected backlash against neighbouring nations failed to materialise on a massive scale (in one noted incident, a group of ethnic Ossetian soldiers led by a Russian officer detained two Chechen Spetsnaz soldiers and executed one of them^[239]). In July 2007, however, the office of the presidential envoy for the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak announced that a North Ossetian armed group engaged in abductions as retaliation for the Beslan school hostage taking (the first rumours of such attacks were reported in the Russian and foreign press already during and just after the hostage crisis^[38][106]).^[240] FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alikhan Kalimatov, who was sent from Moscow to investigate these cases, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in September 2007.^[241]

• In September 2005, the self-proclaimed faith healer and miracle-maker Grigory Grabovoy had promised he could resurrect the killed children for a large sum of money. Grabovoy was arrested and indicted of fraud in April 2006, amidst the accusations that he was being used by the government as a tool to discredit the Mothers of Beslan.^[242]

• In March 2006, the Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov's top aide Marina Litvinovich, who runs the website Pravda Beslana ("The Truth About Beslan"), was savagely beaten by thugs on a Moscow street and told to "be careful". Nothing was stolen in the attack.^[243] In September 2007, Taimuraz Chedzhemov, the lawyer representing the Mothers of Beslan who was seeking to prosecute Russian officials over the massacre, said he has pulled out of the case because of a death threat to his family.^[244]

• Russia's Patriarch Alexius II's plans to build only an Orthodox temple as part of the Beslan monument have caused a serious conflict between the Orthodox Church and the state-approved leadership of the Russian Muslims (the latter claiming that 70% of those killed in Beslan were Muslims) in 2007.^[245] Beslan victims organizations also spoke against the project and many in Beslan want the ruins of the school to be preserved, opposing the government plan of its demolition to begin with.^[246]

• In January 2008, the Voice of Beslan group, previous year ordered to disband by court, was charged by Russian prosecutors with "extremism" over their 2005 appeals to the European Parliament to help establish international investigation and to the United States to publish satellite photographs of the school made during the siege.^{[203][247][248]} This was soon followed with other charges, some of them relating to the 2007 court incident. As of February 2008, the group was charged in total of four different criminal cases.^[249]

[edit] International response

The attack at Beslan was met with international abhorrence and universal condemnation.

On September 1, 2005, UNICEF marked the first anniversary of the Beslan school tragedy by calling on all adults to shield children from war and conflict.^[250]

Charity efforts

Main article: Beslan charity efforts

Countries and charities around the world donated to funds set up to assist the families and children that were involved in the Beslan crisis.

[edit] Media portrayal

Books

• Beslan: Shattered Innocence by Lynn Milburn Lansford
• Beslan: The Tragedy of School Number 1 by Timothy Phillips (ISBN 1862079277)
• Terror at Beslan: A Russian Tragedy with Lessons for America's Schools by John Giduck (ISBN 0-9767753-0-1) (preview available)
• The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises: A Critique of Russian Counter-Terrorism by John B. Dunlop (ISBN 3-89821-608-X)
• The Beslan School Siege and Separatist Terrorism by Michael V. Uschan (preview available)

Films

• Children of Beslan (2005). Produced and directed by Ewa Ewart and Leslie Woodhead. HBO Documentary Films and BBC co-production. Nominated in three different categories under the 2006 Emmy Award festival and awarded the Royal Television Society prize in the category Best Single Documentary.
• Three Days in September (2006). Directed by Joe Halderman, narrated by Julia Roberts. Full Credits Trailer
• The Beslan Siege (2005). TV-documentary by October Films. Director: Richard Alwyn, producer: Liana Pomeranzev. Won the Prix Italia Documentary Award for 2006. IMDB
• Return to Beslan (Terug naar Beslan) (2005). A Dutch documentary produced by Netherlands Public Broadcasting. Won an Emmy Award in 2005 for the best entry in the category "Best Continuing News Coverage".
• Beslan (2009). Feature film produced by Firefly Films. Producer: Matthew Hobbs. Currently in development.

Music

• "Black Widow's Eyes" by The Who (Commentary by Pete Townshend)
• "Children of Beslan" by Steven Cravis (Video by Christian Abicht, available on Cravis' German-language site)
• "Nichya" (No One's) by t.A.T.u. was dedicated to the children and families of Beslan, and was performed at the Beslan memorial by t. A.T.u.
• "Beslan" by Tactical Sekt is inspired by the crisis.

[edit] See also

• Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis
• List of hostage crises
• School shooting

v • d • e Russian-Chechen Conflict
Main events	Specific articles	Federals	Separatists
Wars First Chechen War Dagestan War Second Chechen War Notable battles Grozny (1994) Grozny (1994–1995) Grozny (1996) Grozny (1999–2000) Komsomolskoye (2000) Other Khasav-Yurt accord Russian apartment bombings Hostage crises: Buddyonovsk Kizlyar Moscow Beslan	Second Chechen War 1999 bombing campaign Assassinations Casualties Aircraft losses Crimes and terrorism: Mass graves Suicide attacks Insurgency since May 2000 Caucasian Front International response Federal government in Chechnya	Combatants: Russian Federation Russian Army (Ground Forces) MVD (OMON, Internal Troops) FSB and GRU Special forces (OSNAZ, Spetsnaz) Republic of Chechnya (Kadyrovtsy) Key leaders : Boris Yeltsin Vladimir Putin Doku Zavgayev Akhmad Kadyrov † Alu Alkhanov Ramzan Kadyrov	Combatants: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Mujahideen Key leaders: Dzhokhar Dudayev † Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev † Aslan Maskhadov † Abdul Halim Sadulayev † Dokka Umarov Shamil Basayev † Akhmed Yevloyev Khattab † Abu al-Walid † Abu Hafs al-Urduni † Muhannad

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The School. Feature by C.J. Chivers. Esquire, June 2006, Volume 145, Issue 6. Last accessed October 4, 2007.
• Killers Set Terms, a Mother Chooses. A 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner by Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times. Last accessed October 4, 2007.
• Focus: When hell came calling at Beslan's School No 1 The Guardian, September 5, 2004
• Timeline: the Beslan school siege The Guardian, September 6, 2004
• John B. Dunlop Beslan - Russia's 9/11?, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya and The Jamestown Foundation
• Russian press review. English overview of Russian press reaction, The Guardian, September 6, 2004.
• Global press review examining how Putin should respond, The Guardian, September 6, 2004.
• Pravda Beslana, public investigation of Beslan events (Beslan's Truth, Russian: Правда Беслана).
• Voice of Beslan English translation
• Hope for Beslan. Last accessed 4 October 2007
• Day-by-day transcriptions from criminal trial (Russian), (English). machine translation. Last accessed July 17, 2006.
• Memorial Page for the Victims of Beslan

[edit] Photos and videos

• Beslan school siege (09/01/2004) (very graphic!).
• New Video Of Beslan School Terror CBS, January 21, 2005.
• Photo report by the German journalist Christian Kautz, visiting Beslan school at 2005.
• Terror in Russia. An interactive feature, New York Times.
• In pictures. The Beslan School Siege, The Guardian, September 2004.
• Russian TV broadcasts siege video BBC News, September 7, 2004.
• List of screen shots from BBC News & CNN.
• Beslan. To remember school siege victims, BBC News.
• Missing hostage photos", Novye Izvestia. Machine-translated by www.online-translator.com.
• Dispatches: Beslan, a Channel 4 ocumentary with interviews of people directly involved and affected by the siege.
• Life after Beslan. Kevin Sites photo essay (15 images).
• Crowd Video Footage From Terrorist Siege in Beslan, Russia.
• Pictures of children, teachers and parents who were killed during the event.
• Portraits of the killed hostages.
• Photos of the Beslan school cemetery and inside the destroyed Beslan school.