Posted on 09/05/2004 1:16:11 AM PDT by N. Beaujon
BESLAN, Russia (AP) - A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists after more than 340 people - nearly half of them children - were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.
Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption.
"We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string of attacks that have killed some 450 people in the past two weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.
Shocked relatives wandered among row after row of bodies lined up in black or clear plastic body bags on the pavement at a morgue in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, where the dead from the school standoff in the town of Beslan were taken. In some open bags lay the contorted, thin bodies of children, some monstrously charred.
In Beslan, people scoured lists of names to see if their loved ones survived the chaos of the day before, when the standoff turned violent Friday as militants set off explosives in the school and commandos moved in to seize the building.
Beslan residents were allowed to enter the burned-out husk that was once the gymnasium of School No. 1, where more than 1,000 hostages were held during the 62-hour ordeal that started Wednesday. The gym's roof was destroyed, windows shattered, walls pocked with bullet holes.
Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said 323 people, including 156 children, were killed. More than 540 people were wounded - mostly children. Medical officials said 448 people, including 248 children, remained hospitalized Saturday evening.
Dzgoyev also said 35 attackers - heavily-armed and explosive-laden men and women reportedly demanding independence for the Chechen republic - were killed in 10 hours of battles that shook the area around the school with gunfire and explosions.
Putin made a quick visit to the town before dawn Saturday, meeting local officials and touring a hospital to speak with wounded. He stopped to stroke the head of an injured child.
But some in the region were unimpressed, as grief turned to anger, both at the militants and the government response.
Marat Avsarayev, a 44-year-old taxi driver in Vladikavkaz, questioned why Putin and other politicians didn't "even think about fulfilling the (militants') demands to save the lives of the children. Probably because it wasn't their children here."
During his visit to Beslan, Putin stressed that security officials had not planned to storm the school - trying to fend off potential criticism that the government side provoked the bloodshed. He ordered the region's borders closed while officials searched for anyone connected to the attack.
"What happened was a terrorist act that was inhuman and unprecedented in its cruelty," Putin said in his televised speech later. "It is a challenge not to the president, the parliament and the government but a challenge to all of Russia, to all of our people. It is an attack on our nation."
Including the school disaster, more than 450 people have been killed in the past two weeks in violence. Two planes crashed nearly simultaneously on Aug. 24, killing 90 people, and a suicide bomber killed eight people in Moscow on Tuesday. Chechen separatists are suspected in both attacks.
Putin took a defiant tone, acknowledging Russia's weaknesses but blaming it on the fall of the Soviet Union, foreign foes seeking to tear apart Russia and on corrupt officials. He said Russians could no longer live "carefree" and must all confront terrorism.
Measures would be taken, Putin promised, to overhaul the law enforcement organs, which he acknowledged had been infected by corruption, and tighten borders.
"We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and to demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats," he said.
An unidentified intelligence official was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al-Qaida in Chechnya, and masterminded by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev.
Also, the Federal Security Service chief in North Ossetia, Valery Andreyev, said Saturday that investigators were looking into whether militants had smuggled explosives and weapons into the school and hid them during a renovation this summer.
It was still unclear exactly how the standoff fell apart into bloodshed at 1 p.m. on Friday. Officials say security forces were forced to act when hostage-takers set off explosives. But some questioned that version.
The militants seized the school on the first day of classes Wednesday, herding hundreds of children, parents who had been dropping their kids off, and other adults into the gymnasium, which the militants promptly wired with explosives - including bombs hanging from the basketball hoops. The packed gym became sweltering, and the hostage-takers refused to allow in food or water.
One survivor, Sima Albegova, told the Kommersant newspaper she asked the militants why the captives were taken. "Because you vote for your Putin," one militant told her, she said.
Another freed hostage said a militant told her, "If Putin doesn't withdraw forces from Chechnya and doesn't free our arrested brothers, we'll blow everything up," according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.
Russian officials said the violence began when explosions were apparently set off by the militants - possibly by accident - as emergency workers entered the school courtyard to collect the bodies of hostages killed in the initial raid Wednesday.
Diana Gadzhinova, 14, said the militants ordered her and other hostages to lie face down in the gymnasium as the bodies were collected.
"They told us that there were going to be talks," she was quoted as telling Iszvestia. Others also told of how militants appeared to be confused and surprised at the initial explosions.
Hostages fled during the blasts, and the militants shot at them, prompting security forces to open fire and commandos to move in, officials said.
The explosions tore through the roof of the gymnasium, sending wreckage down on hostages and killing many. Many survivors emerged naked, covered in ashes and soot, their feet bloody from jumping barefoot out of broken windows to escape.
With families gathering for wakes for the dead Saturday, some were vowing vengeance.
"Fathers will bury their children, and after 40 days (the Orthodox mourning period) ... they will take up weapons and seek revenge," said Alan Kargiyev, a 20-year-old university student in Vladikavkaz.
"I am sure something like this is in the Koran, but Christians and Jews aren't considered infidels"
They aren't?
Every non-muslim is considered an infidel
You see what they did to the Nepalise because they were Buddhist?
I am not saying all Muslims are bad people
Most do not adhere to the tenets found in the Koran
Yet, Islam is a bad religion that does teach that it is alright to kill in the name of spreading Islam.
No other religion teaches anything compatable.
Below is from the Koran
"And kill them wherever you find them...and fight them until there is no more 'finah'(disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah"
Sura 2:190, 193
Verily, those who disbelieve in Allah and His Messengers and wish to make distinction between Allah and His messengers (by believing in Allah and disbelieving in His messengers) saying 'we believe in some but reject others' and wish to adopt a way in between.
They are in truth disbelievers. We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating torment
Sura 5:150-151
Traditional Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be people of the book, not infidels. Infidels were originally the pagans in the area I think.
The Wahabbis interprete the Muslim tests differently than the normal Muslims do.
"Traditional Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be people of the book, not infidels. Infidels were originally the pagans in the area I think."
No, an infidel is anyone who does not believe that Muhammad is God's prophet and worship Allah alone.
You are a 'disbeliever'
"O you believe! Take not the Jew and the Christians as "Auliya' (friends, protectors, helpers), they are but 'Auliya' of each other.And if any amongst you takes them (as Auliya), then surely he is one of them. Verily, Allah guides not those people who are "Zalmun"(Polytheists and wrong-doers and unjust)
In other words Jews and Christians.
Yes, the Koran calls Jews and Christians 'people of the scriptures' but that does not make them any less 'infidels' since they reject the additional revelation of Islam.
"Whosoever disbelieves in "Taghut' and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break"
What is 'Taghut'?
"The word 'Taghut' covers a wide range of meanngs. It means anything worshipped other then the Real God (Allah), i.e. all the false deites. It may be Satan, devils, idols, stones sun, stars, angels human beings e.g. Messengers of Allah, who were falsely worshipped and taken as 'Taghut'
(Surah 2:256 footnote 11)
Thus, you see that Christians (who believe Jesus Christ is God Incarnate and worship Him as such) are lumped together with pagan worship.
Don't buy into the media/scholar propaganda about 'moderate' Islam
Islam is only 'quiet' when it knows it cannot defeat the 'infidel'.
"The Wahabbis interprete the Muslim tests differently than the normal Muslims do."
The Wahabbis are taking the Koran at what it says.
We should do likewise.
Welcome to the party - better late than never. Hope the French and Democrats are listening.
I am going to let the government go after the terrorists not all Muslims.
I don't believe in class warfare.
I repeat that normal Muslims don't consider Christians and Jews infidels. During Mohamed's time, the infidels were the pagans of the area.
bttt
If you are right, Putin has only three choices: Mokaa, Mad-ina or both. Which one do you pick? Or rather, which one would GW pick?
"The thing I noticed in the various pictures of Putin visiting the survivors in the hospital is that he didn't show any emotion at all."
Russians have different cultural expectations of how people act in that kind of situation than we do.
"We never disregard this important time in the church. There are services all along from 3 days to 40 days. It would be completely inappropriate to seek revenge during this time."
Then the following 40 day periods will add up to years, and more will die.
Duh.
You know...I feel as though the events of the past year or so have been dedicated to smearing Bush and proving him wrong via books, movies, grandstanding at the 9/11 commissions, and a slew of negative news out of Iraq, etc. etc. But in the past two weeks or so, it seems as though all of the critics are slowly but surely being silenced and having to put their foot in their mouth. It really makes me happy to see Bush starting to get some of the credit and respect that he has deserved over the past year or so. Things are going well guys!!
Noticed how as it was after 911, the focus and critiquing is on Putin, not the terrorists, who they are and what can be done to eradicate them.
But what if (God Forbid) They attacked every 39 days?
I pray that Russia can keep this from happening again, and for the parents who lost their children. Very, Very sad.
Very, very sad!!! We need to help them fight this if they want our help.
"Fight against those (4) ...who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the "Jizyah" with willing submissions and feel themselves subdued (Surah 9:29)
What you believe or don't believe is unimportant to the fact of what the Koran teaches.
Islam is at war with Christianity and every other faith and has been since its inception.
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