Russian School Taken Hostage

[gamavor]

I think he saw them as potential collabolateurs as well during WWII. Not to mention the Crimean Tatars who were deported as well since they were actively colluding with the Nazis.

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Not only Tatars, but also large number of Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and others were deported by Stalin from Cremea during WW II, and it was not only for loyalty reasons, but later after the war many were deported to Central Asian Republics to develop their economies and culture.

[Accelerated]

Last time I heard, even some Russians weren't too sure that the Chechens were responsible for the attacks in Daghestan. Irrelevant, really, given Russian barbarism.

 

I think they deserve one another.

[gamavor]

I think Russians should "liberate" the Chechens, just like Bushy is trying to "liberate" Iraqis.

[Anileve]

I think Russians should "liberate" the Chechens, just like Bushy is trying to "liberate" Iraqis.

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Yes, and let’s all become one nation under “One” God. Except, which "God" is it going to be? <_< I am simply outraged at today’s explosion, I am almost sure that the military was given certain orders to tamper the plans of the rebels, as it happened previously. The gunmen panicked and something went wrong. I find it extremely bizarre that no in is "exactly" sure of what happened. That seems to be a plan to win some time before Russian government decides to cover their asses by creating some bogus story.

 

They are always eager to pull the trigger or provoke the situation. As they did in karabagh when the soldiers and tanks were standing and chuckling as the fights between the two sides broke out due their instigation. A commie soul will always stay a commie soul. What drives me absolutely mad is how eager they are to manipulate the lives of their people and often sacrifice not to lose their power pedestal. As they did with Sakharov, after using his destructive invention. Thanks to Russians for being the founding fathers of Nuclear Weapons, which other nations are blamed for possessing. But of course, everyone else is usually responsible for the chaos in the world but the Superpower, god forbid. Funny how everyone is always so quick to side with the most powerful.

[Anileve]

yes Vahe jan  they did kill them all

including the normal pepole

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Who cares? They killed the terrorists though! What is 300+ innocent lives of women, men and children compared to the profit they can make from the oil infested land?

[Anileve]

Errrr ... in Ireland the terrorists (so called) were Catholic, and I don't recall religion ever being mentioned as a component of ETA (the exact opposite in fact -Spanish ultra-nationalists, especially under Franco, tended also to be fanatical Catholics).

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Errrrr....I beg to differ...http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/uvf.html

 

Young Protestant men from Ulster’s most downtrodden neighborhoods make up the core membership of loyalist paramilitary groups, which are effectively pro-state terrorist organizations.

 

ETA is still composed of Roman Catholics. The two major nationalist groups engaging in terrorist activity are still an offspring of the world's largest religion "Christianity" which is comprised of 2 billion, surely enough their next contender in line is Islam, which will always be in very close competition. But as long as the Christian religion dominates the largest piece of the religious pie, Muslim terrorists will get the most notorious press coverage to further pour fuel into the fire of bigots who reduce terrorism to a religious orientation rather than a simple political agenda and the whole bullshit human hunger for land. Now people identify terrorism with Islam, but you know it’s easier that way, at least now people have a face to which they can attach their fears. You can finally see your enemy which makes it “seemingly” easy to battle. I guess it’s what the shepherd wants its herd to think that way they can give them an illusion that as long as the face is identified they can conquer it. And the sheep believe this illusion, just as they believed in the God of the Nile.

[Sasun]

Funny how everyone is always so quick to side with the most powerful.

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Nope, not everyone

[Sasun]

True.  It may take some logistics and negotiations, but it is not by necessity a utopian dream, except that the powers of status quo make it so.

Well, there is not enough "dynamic range", so to speak, to have an empire that is "much better" than another.  They are all evil creations, and a collective  expression of extreme arrogance and brutality.  They betray, at worst a total lack of moral fiber, or at best unabashed hypocrisy on the part of the empire-builders.

 

Ottoman empire was not a particularly "bad" empire (in a scale defined by other empires) until it started an accelerated collapse in the 19th century.  Sure, it always had a massacre here, an unprovoked war there, enslavement, theft, and all such fun and glorious stuff of empires, but it was a "normal" empire, and no more evil (possibly less) than the British or French empires.  And then Abdulhamid came, and the rest is, well, history.

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I understand and agree. What I had in mind was more like, if we take the lowest record in each empire as a measure then the Ottoman empire has been much worse than the Russian empire.

[MosJan]

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 had ended. Bomb experts and rescuers looking for victims resumed their search of the building Saturday after a break overnight.

 

Putin visit

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the town early Saturday and ordered the borders of North Ossetia, the republic where the school is located, closed while any hostage takers still on the loose are pursued.

 

All Russia grieves with you," Putin said during a meeting with local officials in Beslan in the North Ossetia region, carried 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."

 

Valery Andreyev, Russia's Federal Security Service chief in the region, said 10 Arabs were among 27 militants who were killed. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing unidentified security sources, reported the hostage-taking was the work of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who had al-Qaida backing.

 

Terrifying brutality

Alla Gadieyeva, 24, who was taken captive with her 7-year-old son and mother, said the militants displayed terrifying brutality from the start. One gunman, whose pockets were stuffed with grenades, held up the corpse of a man just shot in front of hundreds of hostages and warned: "If a child utters even a sound, we'll kill another one."

 

When children fainted from lack of sleep, food and water, their masked and camouflaged captors simply sneered, she said, adding that adults implored children to drink their own urine in the intolerable heat of the gym.

 

She and other hostages said there was a little water but no food the first day. The hostages got nothing to eat or drink after that.

 

Gadieyeva told of three days of unspeakable horror -- of children so frightened they couldn't sleep, of captors coolly threatening to kill off hostages one by one. The gym where they were held was so cramped there was hardly room to move.

 

‘We were in complete fear’

"We were in complete fear," said Gadieyeva, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter as she lay collapsed with exhaustion on a stretcher outside a hospital. "People were praying all the time, and those that didn't know how to pray -- we taught them."

 

The Interfax news agency quoted unidentified sources in the regional Health Ministry as saying some 250 people were killed. The figure could not be confirmed. Reporters said they had seen at least 100 bodies in the school gym.

 

Under a grove of trees outside the school, white sheets covered dead bodies, including those of children, on lines of stretchers. Grieving parents and loved ones knelt beside the dead, some of whom were awaiting identification. Nearby, anxious crowds gathered around lists of injured posted on the walls of the hospital buildings.

 

It was not clear where the tragic end to the siege would leave Putin's tough policy on Chechnya, which has enjoyed broad domestic support despite the heavy toll rebel violence has taken in recent years. He has said the Russian fight in the Caucasus was part of the world's larger war on terrorism.

 

On his visit to Beslan, Putin warned against letting the attack stir up tensions in the mult-ethnic North Caucasus region. "One of the goals of the terrorist was to sow ethnic enmity and blow up the North Caucasus," Putin said. "Anyone who gives in to such a provocation will be viewed by us as abetting terrorism."

 

‘Another grim reminder’

On the campaign trail in Wisconsin, President Bush said the hostage siege was "another grim reminder" of the lengths to which terrorists will go. World governments joined Washington in condemning the militants.

"It is hard to express my revulsion at the inhumanity of terrorists prepared to put children and their families through such suffering," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

 

The State Department issued a public announcement warning U.S. citizens living or traveling in Russia against going to Chechnya and the neighboring regions because of a heightened risk of terrorist attacks.

 

"American citizens in Russia should exercise caution and remain vigilant and aware of these heightened risks when planning use of or using any form of public transportation. American citizens should also avoid large public gatherings that lack enhanced security measures," the announcement said.

 

The Arab presence among the attackers would support Putin's contention that al-Qaida terrorists were deeply involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been battling Russian forces in a brutal war of independence on and off for more than a decade. ITAR-Tass said Basayev received funding for the attack from alleged al-Qaida operative Abu Omar as-Saif.

 

Russian authorities said they stormed the building after the militants set off explosions and fired shots as emergency teams approached to collect the bodies of several men killed earlier. They said the hostage-takers had given them permission to take the corpses away. Witnesses quoted by Russian media said the militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and then began to escape themselves.

 

Bombs explode in gym

A police explosives expert told NTV television that the commandos stormed the building after bombs wired to basketball hoops exploded in the gymnasium, where many of the children were being held. A captive who escaped told NTV that a suicide bomber blew herself up in the gym.

 

Channel One TV reported three of the attackers were arrested after trying to escape in civilian dress. Four militants were believed to have escaped. A member of an elite security unit died saving two young girls, ITAR-Tass reported.

 

The standoff was declared at an end hours after commandos began their midday assault, when a final large explosion issued from the school, apparently ending a gunfight between three militants trapped in the school basement and security forces trying to free children being used as human shields. Sporadic shooting continued hours later.

 

A hostage who escaped told the AP that the militants numbered 28, including women wearing camouflage uniforms. The hostage, who identified himself only as Teimuraz, said the militants began wiring the school with explosives as soon as they took control. He, too, said they had placed bombs on both basketball hoops in the gym.

 

The bomb expert said the gym had been rigged with explosives packed in plastic bottles strung up around the room on a cord and stuffed with metal objects.

[Accelerated]

Channel One TV reported three of the attackers were arrested after trying to escape in civilian dress. Four militants were believed to have escaped.

 

How f###ing incompetent are the Russian special forces! I can understand the high casualty count, but how can they let anyone escape when they had two days to seel-off the area!?! And I dont think its the first time....

[Nakharar]

Those special forces aren't so special afterall.

[Teutonic Knight]

155 children slaughtered, 300 wounded by 10 arabs, one negro and about a dozen chechen/ingush.

 

Putin should drop a few nukes on meccah and medinah and annihilate every single animal in the Caucasus.

 

Most messed up thing ive read in a while:

 

Killers Set Terms, a Mother Chooses

 

Fri Sep 3, 7:55 AM ET Add Top Stories - Los Angeles Times to My Yahoo!

 

 

By Kim Murphy Times Staff Writer

 

BESLAN, Russia — Zalina Dzandarova cradles her son Alan as he sleeps with his small face buried against her stomach. He is the child Dzandarova was able to save. The child she chose to save, really.

 

 

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It is the other one, little Alana, her 6-year-old daughter, whose image torments her: Alana clutching her hand, Alana crying and calling after her. Alana's sobs disappearing into the distance as Dzandarova walked out of Middle School No. 1 here Thursday, clutching 2-year-old Alan in her arms.

 

 

Guerrillas armed with automatic rifles and explosive belts who are holding hundreds of hostages at the small provincial school in southern Russia allowed 26 women and children to leave. About a dozen mothers, like Dzandarova, were allowed to take only one child, forced to leave another behind.

 

 

"I didn't want to make this choice," a stunned-looking Dzandarova, 27, said in the reception room of her father-in-law's house a few miles from the school. "People say they are happy that my son and I are saved. But how can I be happy if my daughter's still inside there?"

 

 

Violence often selects its victims randomly, but seldom is a mother asked to make a Sophie's choice: Save one child and leave behind another, possibly to face death. The standoff in North Ossetia republic involving about 20 guerrillas — most likely linked to the neighboring separatist republic of Chechnya (news - web sites) or adjacent Ingushetia — has stunned a nation accustomed to war and its horrors after the many ethnic and territorial conflicts that accompanied the breakup of the Soviet Union.

 

 

Even with the downing of two Russian jetliners and two street bombings coming in just one week, the thought of schoolchildren surrounded by veiled female suicide bombers and masked guerrillas has traumatized the country. "They Have Taken Hundreds of Our Children," read a banner headline in the daily newspaper Izvestia.

 

 

And they took Alana.

 

 

"They said they would let us go only after the [Russian] troops are withdrawn from Chechnya," said Dzandarova. She said the attackers had identified themselves as Chechens. "I said we have nothing to do with that, but they wouldn't listen."

 

 

Her description provided one of the first accounts of what was happening inside the school, where Dzandarova said as many as 1,000 children and parents were being held in a gymnasium planted with explosives. Authorities officially listed the number of hostages at 354, a figure Dzandarova disputed.

 

 

"The director of the school was taken to a TV where they were saying there were 354 of us in here, and the director came back and she was in a state of shock, because there were in fact many more people there," she said.

 

 

"There were definitely 1,000 people in that one room," she said, referring to the gym. "I saw it with my own eyes."

 

 

On Wednesday, Dzandarova took her daughter to the first day of first grade. As students and parents began lining up, they saw the attackers sweeping into the school. Dzandarova ran with her children to hide in a classroom, but they were rounded up with the others and taken to the gym.

 

 

"Everyone was ordered to sit down, and they began to set up booby-traps around the perimeter, right in front of our eyes. They had lots of guns and explosives with them."

 

 

At first, she said, everyone was allowed to drink water from the tap. But the hostage-takers soon stopped that, she said, because they were angry that officials, including the presidents of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, had not come to meet with them.

 

 

Without water, the powdered milk the guerrillas supplied for the children had to be spooned into their mouths.

 

 

The gym was sweltering, even after the window panes were broken out.

 

 

"They were telling us, 'Your government is not allowing enough water for your kids.' "

 

 

 

 

 

In just two days, she said, the problem became acute. "You see, the kids won't survive these negotiations," she said. "They're not getting enough water. What we have to hope is that they'll survive this night without water."

 

At the beginning, 20 men in the gym were led to a different room. On Thursday, Dzandarova said, 10 of the men returned. The hostages presumed that the others were dead.

 

"They told us that it was 'your own side' that had executed them, who had shot them dead," Dzandarova said.

 

Two women who had been wearing suicide belts apparently detonated them Wednesday in an adjoining room, she said.

 

"They left the gym, and all of a sudden we heard two loud explosions. We thought the storming [by Russian police] had begun. But then they told us, 'Our sisters have won a victory, and there's no other cause they want to pursue.' "

 

The male guerrillas, she said, "took it calmly."

 

Much of the time, she said, the guerrillas appeared tense: running around the room, waving their guns in the hostages' faces, shouting at them to sit still and stop talking.

 

When Alan began to cry from hunger, Dzandarova was allowed to join several other mothers in an adjacent room, which had its own water and was several degrees cooler.

 

After a former local political leader visited the school Thursday, the women in the adjacent room were told there was "good news": They would be released.

 

"They said, 'Pack your things quickly, and take your babies with you,' " Dzandarova said.

 

Shortly after, she learned that she would have to choose between taking her son or her daughter.

 

Dzandarova had both Alan and Alana with her and made a snap decision to pass Alana to her 16-year-old sister-in-law. But the guerrillas saw through the ruse and refused to allow her to take the older child.

 

"Alana was clinging to me and holding my hand firmly. But they separated us, and said: 'You go with the boy. Your sister can stay here with her.' I cried. I begged them. Alana cried. The women around us wept. One of the Chechens said: 'If you don't go now, you don't go at all. You stay here with your children … and we will shoot all of you.' "

 

She couldn't save both of them. She could only die with both of them — or save one of them and herself.

 

"I didn't have time to think what I was doing," she said. "I pressed Alan even stronger to myself, and I went out, and I heard all the time how my daughter was crying and calling for me behind my back. I thought my heart would break into pieces there and then."

 

Dzandarova cried as she talked. Her tears fell on Alan, who was sleeping. Even when his mother shook quietly with sobs as she cradled him, he didn't awaken.

[gurgen]

I still don't understand why Putin doesn't turn Chechnya into a very very large parking lot. Problem solved.

 

No human rights for beings that are not human.

[Nakharar]

You need to have such niceties as Dunkin' Donuts and Burger King first. Every parking lot should have its raison d'être.

[shiner]

I still don't understand why Putin doesn't turn Chechnya into a very very large parking lot. Problem solved.

 

No human rights for beings that are not human.

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Good point! And not just Chechnya but the whole Muslim world.

Allah will be one busy mofo that day accepting all those "peaceful, loyal" souls (who all sympathize with what the Islamists are doing throughout the world) And so will his boy Mohammed

[Armat]

Good point! And not just Chechnya but the whole Muslim world.

Allah will be one busy mofo that day accepting all those "peaceful, loyal" souls (who all sympathize with what the Islamists are doing throughout the world) And so will his boy Mohammed

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Let’s chill the hysteria. Turks had similar hysterical reactions against perceived or real revolutionary movement among Armenians so their fervent reaction was to annihilate entire population.

I think religion has very little to do about Chechnya and everything to do with freedom. I am not justifying the act so despicable that I can’t find words to describe however Russians are simply invaders in that part of the region and they should grant some kind of federation status to Chechnya. Russians will never be able to subdue Chechens by force.

[Teutonic Knight]

The only good mudslim is a dead mudslim.

Nuke them all.

 

9 Armenian hostages, 5 of them kids killed in Beslan out of a total of 33 Armenian hostages

 

В Беслане погибли 9 из 33 армян, взятых в заложники террористами

 

Из 33 армян, захваченных в заложники террористами в городе Беслан Северной Осетии 1 сентября, погибли 9. 5 из них - дети. Об этом сообщил сегодня глава Генерального Консульства Армении в Южном федеральном округе России Арарат Гомцян. В то же время он подчеркнул, что все вышесказанное - предварительная информация, которая будет обновляться. Напомним, что в результате теракта в городе Беслан по официальным данным погибли 336 и ранено около 400 человек, половина которых дети.

[gurgen]

Let’s chill the hysteria. Turks had similar hysterical reactions against perceived or real revolutionary movement among Armenians so their fervent reaction was to annihilate entire population.

I think religion has very little to do about Chechnya and everything to do with freedom. I am not justifying the act so despicable that I can’t find words to describe however Russians are simply invaders in that part of the region and they should grant some kind of federation status to Chechnya. Russians will never be able to subdue Chechens by force.

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That region was conquered some few hundred years ago, and the Chechens weren't even natives of that region to begin with.

[Sasun]

Could everyone please refrain from making offensive comments directed to other religions? We all can see that there is a problem of terrorism but that doesn't mean ALL muslims are at fault and they should be nuked or punished otherwise. It is plain religious intolerance, something that cannot be allowed!

Thank you.

[Teutonic Knight]

Could everyone please refrain from making offensive comments directed to other religions? We all can see that there is a problem of terrorism but that doesn't mean ALL muslims are at fault and they should be nuked or punished otherwise. It is plain religious intolerance, something that cannot be allowed!

Thank you.

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Certainly, but if most muslims do not condemn these acts perpetrated by their brethren in the name of their religion than most muslims are just as guilty and deserve to be punished even if they did not participate in the given act.

This phenomenon is only available among muslims. There are no insane suicidal killers in other religions that kill women and children.

[bellthecat]

That region was conquered some few hundred years ago, and the Chechens weren't even natives of that region to begin with.

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What history books have you been reading? One that you have written yourself perhaps?

[gamavor]

In response to the tragic events in Beslan, Southern Russia, Armenia’s government has urged its citizens to come to the aid of the injured survivors and the shattered community by giving blood. This act of solidarity comes in the aftermath of one of the largest and most galling terror attacks in Russia, where it is reported that around 400 people of all ages have perished after hostages-takers held almost 1000 citizens in a school during a 3 day siege.

 

http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/js04/040906beslan.jpg

 

http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/index.html

[gurgen]

What history books have you been reading? One that you have written yourself perhaps?

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That is what I know. Feel free to enlighten me.

 

On the other hand, I don't really care. People who shoot children in the back don't deserve to live in any land.

[Teutonic Knight]

That is what I know. Feel free to enlighten me.

 

On the other hand, I don't really care. People who shoot children in the back don't deserve to live in any land.

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They don't deserve to live period.

In any case Chechens are indeed natives of those lands, it's just thay they have always been primitive, barbaric and tribal. Never having any form of a government or an organized social structure of their own.

[shaunt]

This is nothing compared to the suffering Russia has brought upon the Chechens for the past 280+ years.

 

 

In any case Chechens are indeed natives of those lands, it's just thay they have always been primitive, barbaric and tribal. Never having any form of a government or an organized social structure of their own.

 

You are contradicting yourself.

 

And we should hold back calling these people "barbaric" until we have dedicated ourselves to studying their entire history, not just the actions of the past few years.