Not true. Christianity was gentle at the beginnings and is gentle in its principles. The Founder of the Church sacrificed his life meekly for all people.
Islam was started in violence and terror. Muhammad was a warior and conqueror.
Compare: 
Posted on 09/01/2004 3:56:34 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Armed attackers seized a school in southern Russia near Chechnya (news - web sites) on Wednesday, took up to 400 children and adults hostage and threatened to blow up the building if police tried to storm it, news agencies said.
In an assault that bore the hallmarks of a Chechen rebel operation, the gang, numbering up to 17 heavily-armed men and women, stormed into the secondary school in Beslan in North Ossetia province during a ceremony to mark the first day of the new school year.
RIA news agency said the gang, some of whom were strapped with explosives, had herded their captives into the school's gymnasium and mined it. They had threatened to blow up the building with their captives if interior ministry forces tried to take it by force.
Itar-Tass news agency said the militants were demanding the release of fighters seized in neighboring Ingushetia in June during a huge rebel raid on the region.
At least three civilians were killed and 11 injured in the initial phase of the attack, Tass quoted the local interior ministry as saying.
The agency said nearly 50 children managed to escape.
It was the latest in a wave of violence that has hit Russia in recent weeks, blamed on Chechen separatists and raising questions over President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s hardline strategy to bring the rebels to heel.
Previous mass hostage-taking by Chechen militants in Russia have ended in heavy loss of life.
BODIES ON GROUND
"One body is lying near the entrance to the school. Two others are on the road near a fence. The attackers are not allowing anyone to collect the bodies. They open fire when anyone tries to approach them," Tass quoted the ministry official as saying after the school attack.
Schoolchildren, calling from inside the besieged building, told their parents that some people had been injured, possibly killed, as militants seized the building.
Reports of the exact number of hostages held varied between 200 and 400 and the number of children between 120 and 200. The school normally has about 900 schoolchildren and 60 teachers.
As interior ministry troops poured into the area, gunfire between the hostage-takers and police erupted.
Russian TV at the scene showed police racing for cover as bullets whined around the school building.
The mass hostage-taking was a new challenge to Putin's Chechnya policies. On Tuesday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up in central Moscow in an attack that killed 10 people and injured 51.
And on August 24 two passenger planes were blown up apparently by suicide bombers in attacks that killed 90 people.
There was no immediate word from Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi where on Tuesday he had met German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and France's Jacques Chirac.
He had been due to visit Turkey this week but it seemed likely he may now have to call off his planned trip.
UP TO 400 SEIZED
"There could be up to 400 children and teachers held hostage," Irina Terkina, a spokeswoman for Putin's envoy in southern Russia, said by telephone.
Tass quoted local police as saying the attackers, some of whom were armed with shoulder-launched grenades, had rolled up at school No. 1 in a truck.
Several children had managed to escape as the drama began to unfold. "There is information that several kids managed to escape. They are now being questioned by police," Tass quoted a police source as saying.
"A police patrol at the school was the first to engage in fighting with the fighters...One of the attackers was killed," the source added.
In a separate report, Tass said, without giving a source, that some teachers may have been killed.
North Ossetia lies to the west of the seething Chechnya region where Russian forces have been fighting a war with separatist rebels for a decade.
There was no immediate charge that Chechen rebels were behind the attack, but the well-organized assault and the proximity to Chechnya suggested they may well be involved.
God watch over these children, their families, teachers, and those who bear the responsibility of their rescue.
I pray for the hostages. I hope against hope that the situation does not end badly.
Also, please remember that the Russians above all love their children, and do not have the same "sensitivities" that are forced on us in this war. They are not subtle when it comes to this thing. This is going to get DNC demonstrator ugly really really fast.
"God watch over these children, their families, teachers, and those who bear the responsibility of their rescue."
Ditto.
I pray for the hostages. I hope against hope that the situation does not end badly.
Also, please remember that the Russians above all love their children, and do not have the same "sensitivities" that are forced on us in this war. They are not subtle when it comes to this thing. This is going to get DNC demonstrator ugly really really fast.
The world is giving the President the examples as to why the war on terror is the number one issue facing all of us. And why he is the man to continue to the charge in this battle.
Excellent point. Even the sniveling, surrendering, backstabbing, lying French are facing terror firsthand. I wish the global community could see terror for what it really is, not the picture painted by the Reuters of the world.
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- About 20 armed men and women wearing explosives seized a school in southern Russia and are holding at least 120 children hostage, the country's fourth terrorist attack in the past eight days.
At least three people died and their bodies remain near the school in Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia, NTV television said. Between 120 and 150 hostages are being held, North Ossetia Interior Ministry spokesman Ismel Shaov told Interfax. President Vladimir Putin flew back to Moscow from the Black Sea resort of Sochi ahead of schedule, according to the Kremlin's Web site.
Terrorist attacks killed at least 99 people in Russia in the past week. A suicide bomber yesterday detonated an explosive near a subway station entrance in Moscow, killing 10. Two Russian passenger aircraft crashed Aug. 24 within minutes of each other in southern and central Russia after explosions on board.
``Now there's a big question mark over the stability brought in by Putin,'' said Al Breach, a strategist at Brunswick UBS in Moscow. ``There's no feeling of stability, there's gloom.''
Rossiya television showed troops surrounding the school and a girl running from the school. Shooting was audible on the broadcast.
Terrorist Threats
The terrorists threatened to detonate their explosive belts if rescuers attempt to storm the building and said 50 children would be executed if any of the hostage-takers is killed, Itar-Tass said, citing Kazbek Dzantiyev, the head of Northern Ossetia's Interior Ministry.
The fighters are demanding authorities release people arrested as suspects after Chechen rebels raided the neighboring republic of Ingushetia in June. They threw a message out of a window, demanding the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya, Itar-Tass reported.
Russia's Interior and Emergency Ministries and the Federal Security Service declined to comment on the hostage-taking in Beslan. Shaov at North Ossetia's Interior Ministry didn't answer telephone calls.
About 50 children escaped from the school at the time it was seized, Itar-Tass said, without citing anyone. Another 15 children were released by terrorists, it said.
First Day of School
The gunmen seized the school during a ceremony to begin the Russian school year. Festivities are usually held in schools across Russia on Sept. 1, with children coming to school in their finest clothes and carrying flowers for the teachers, parents coming to meet staff and songs being played over the public address system.
The terrorists released a woman who passed their demand to meet with Ossetian and Ingushetian presidents, said a spokesman at the headquarters set up by the Ossetian government to manage the crisis. He declined to be identified.
Russia suffered its worst terrorist attack in October 2002, when at least 129 hostages died as Russian special forces stormed a theater in Moscow where more than 800 people were being held hostage by Chechen separatists. Those terrorists also wore explosive belts.
North Ossetia borders Chechnya, where Russian troops have been fighting Islamic rebels since 1994. The headquarters of Russian troops in Northern Caucasus is located in the Ossetian town of Mozdok.
Bombing Claims
A group calling itself the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility for the aircraft explosions and yesterday's bombing in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.
``Targeting Russia is the start of a violent and bloody war against those who have dedicated themselves to kill Islam and its people,'' the group said. ``This war will dissuade the criminals in Russia's house from killing Muslims.''
Moscow police searched the Kursk subway station and Chechnya's representative office after it received telephone bomb alerts. No bombs were discovered.
``This is a war on Russia, waged in a specific form where you can't spot the enemy immediately,'' Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on the Rossiya television before the hostage-taking raid in Beslan. ``But that's a war.''
Russia has about 80,000 soldiers in Chechnya. Chechnya on Sunday elected Alu Alkhanov president in a poll organized by the republic's pro-Russian government and held to replace Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May. Rebels called the elections illegitimate.
Putin backed first Kadyrov and then Alkhanov, saying they were best equipped to return Chechnya to a normal life after a decade of conflict. Former President Boris Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya in December 1994 in an attempt to crush Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev's bid to secede from Russia.
The republic's separatist movement fell under the influence of Muslim fundamentalists amid Russian brutality against civilians during the first, two-year war and as Arab mercenaries started to take part in the conflict.
Putin
Putin, who yesterday met German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac in Sochi, said the plane explosions were the work of terrorists linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network and represented evidence of ties between Chechen rebels and international terrorists.
Putin hasn't commented on the Moscow explosion or on the Ossetia raid.
At least 39 people died in February this year when a terrorist bomb blast hit the second carriage of a train on the Moscow Metro underground railway. Putin said at the time that the Metro attack may have been an attempt to put pressure on him during Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 14. Putin won re- election with 71 percent of ballots cast in those polls.
Then-Prime Minister Putin's determination to invade and reconquer Chechnya in 1999 helped to boost his popularity before Yeltsin resigned in Putin's favor on Dec. 31, 1999, naming his prime minister as acting president and his chosen successor. Putin was elected as president in March 2000.
Both Russians and Chechens have been criticized by groups such as Amnesty International for breaching human rights in the war.
Last Updated: September 1, 2004 08:29 EDT
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=atxQQF8MVw6g&refer=home
ROPMA bump - Thanks for the ammo! ;-)
I've seen your screen name before and thought "Hey we have a good barbecue place here in Austin called PokeyJoe's" Now I guess that's cuz you're from here.
The tower has reopened and you can go up to the top and see the bullet holes, BTW.
The death of Islam.
I have already given Putin the go ahead to do what he has to. But you say it well.
Well, do you think that Christ was teaching his disciples to terrorise the enemies with violence and that Muhammad was teaching to love the enemies?
A Christian who tries to follow teaching of Christ will go one a very different path that devout Muslim. The most devout Muslims are Saudi Wahabies who gained influence in Chechnya during Russian withdrawal under Yeltsin.
Not true. Christianity was gentle at the beginnings and is gentle in its principles. The Founder of the Church sacrificed his life meekly for all people.
Islam was started in violence and terror. Muhammad was a warior and conqueror.
Compare:
You should read Koran.
I know that we could also find some strange fragments in the Bible or in Jewish holy books.
Can you give some examples from the New Testament (which has preeminence for the Christians over the Old)?
In the middle ages Muslim culture or since were better developed than European/Christian and that's why I think that It's not about religion.
It was more developed only in the sense that Muslims were ruling over the conquered and impoverished Christians. Once the number of enslaved Christians decreased and others resisted the conquest, the Islamic civilisation deteriorated.
It is about religion - every civilisation is based on what is the ultimate belief of people creating it.
You forgot about the spanish inquisition.
And all the people broken on the wheel.
And burned.
Inqusition executed a few thousands of people (in Spain out of more than hundred thousand trials about 1% led to the execution). Atheists/militant secularists killed tens of millions people (Russia, Kambodia and other countries)
And all the people broken on the wheel.
Torture was standard thing in the past, religion had nothing to do with it. And it is being brought back today.
And burned.
Reno/Clinton burned 80 heretics/cultists including children in Waco without trial. And they are secularists.
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