User:Sherurcij/Beslan school hostage crisis/sandbox

The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan Massacre) began when armed terrorists took over 1200 school children and adults hostage on September 1 2004, at School Number One (SNO) in the Russian town of Beslan in North Ossetia.

On the third day of the standoff, shooting broke out between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. According to official data, 344 civilians were killed, 186 of them children[^[1], and hundreds more wounded.

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev took responsibility for the hostage taking, reportedly led by his principal Ingush deputy Magomet Yevloyev.

Background[edit]

September 1 is the start of the Russian school year and is traditionally called "First September" or "Day of Knowledge". Children are accompanied by parents and other relatives. Commonly, the first-year students give a flower to those entering their final year, and are then taken to class by the older children.

In 1992, SNO had served as an informal detention centre during the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, when unknown Ossetian militants used it to detain people of Ingush race, resulting in several being killed.^[2]

SNO was one of seven schools in Beslan, and with approximately 900 students, 59 teachers and a small support staff.

Course of the crisis[edit]

Day 1[edit]

Packed into the school gym with wired explosives attached to the basketball hoop

At 09:30 local time on September 1, a group of approximately 32 attackers arrived at SNO in a GAZel van and a GAZ-66, wearing black ski masks and carrying explosive belts.

After an exchange of gunfire with police, in which five officers and one attacker were killed, the attackers seized the school building taking more than 1,300 hostages. The Russian government initially downplayed the numbers, stating there were only 354 hostages, which reportedly angered the attackers. At first some mistook the attackers for Russians when they tried to lure children from the playground into the school speaking Russian and offering chocolate bars, before firing their guns in the air.^[3]. During the initial chaos about fifty people managed to flee to safety and alert authorities.

It was later revealed that the terrorists had killed twenty adult male hostages and thrown their bodies out of the building that day."Killers Set Terms, a Mother Chooses". Terrorism. Los Angeles Times, Pulitzer Prize. September 3, 2004. Retrieved 2006-07-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)</ref>.

security cordon was soon established around the school, consisting of Militsiya and Russian Army forces, OSNAZ including the Alpha Group of the FSB, and members of the OMON unit of the MVD.

The attackers mined the gymnasium 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 fifty hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and to kill twenty hostages for every gunman injured. They also threatened to blow up the school should government forces attack.

The Russian government initially said that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations towards a peaceful resolution did take place on the first and second days, 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 Theatre Siege.

That night, the hostagetakers began exploring the area surrounding the school, preparing for an exit strategy once their demands had been met.^[4].

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". U.S. President George W. Bush made a statement offering its "support in any form" to Russia.

Day 2[edit]

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 school.^[5]

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. After the attacks, several girls did claim to have been raped.^[6]. Surviving hostage Kazbek Dzarasov reports that the terrorists would pick from amongst the prettiest adolescent girls and take them to another room with an excuse of having them fetch water, rape them and return them a few hours later^[7].

In the afternoon, the gunmen agreed to release 26 nursing women and their infants following their negotiations with former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, to whom they handed off a nursing infant whose mother refused to leave the school because of her other children.^[8]

At around 15:30, two RPGs were fired by the hostage-takers at security forces outside the school, approximately ten minutes apart.^[9].

Day 3[edit]

Around 13:04 on September 3, 2004, the hostage-takers agreed to allow medical workers to remove bodies from the school grounds. However when the medical workers approached the school the hostage-takers opened fire, and shortly after two large explosions were heard from the gymnasium. Two of the medical workers were killed, while the rest retreated. Part of the gymnasium wall was demolished by the explosions, allowing a group of about thirty hostages to escape, though a large number was killed when the hostage-takers fired at them and as a result of crossfire from the hostage-takers and army.

Presidential advisor Aslambek Aslakhanov later said that the cause of firing and the subsequent storming of the school had been a spontaneous explosion — according to an escaped hostage, one of the bombs had been insecurely attached by an adhesive tape and had fallen and exploded.

In a conflicting account, an anonymous employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that the shooting began after the medical workers' truck arrived at the pick-up point. He did not know whether the armed fathers of hostages or the hostage-takers fired first (see the article in Izvestia below). Other witnesses reported hearing increasing automatic weapons fire before the blasts.

These two accounts may be reconcilable. Ruslan Aushev, a key negotiator during the siege, told the Novaya Gazeta 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 the gunfire led the hostage-takers to believe that the school was being stormed; in response, they set off their bombs.

The third version has it that a couple of female terrorist bombers blew themselves up as soon as they heard gunfire. This version is contradicted by the following sources.

The surviving hostages' stories such as the one by the Alania soccer team's cameraman Karen Mdinaradze published by Newsru September 17 [1]. The man lost his eye and saw others hurt by the blast which killed the bombers long before the storm.
The captured suspect hostage-taker Kulayev's story (see Investigations below).
The September 17 statement attributed to Shamil Basayev where only 2 female perpetrators were mentioned^[10]

The fourth version is that a special forces sniper shot the hostage-taker whose foot was on a dead-man detonator. Some, especially government sources, say that it was an unauthorized action that the sniper took upon himself, though others suggest that the shot was authorized in order to resolve the hostage crisis.

Part of the task force was away from the scene at the urgent training exercise in a similar school.

It was at this point that Russian special forces activated their action plan to storm the school to rescue any possible survivors. A chaotic battle broke out as the special forces sought to enter the school and cover the escape of the hostages. The task force members blew holes in walls to allow hostages to escape.

In addition to the special forces, army and Interior Ministry troops engaged, there were Mi-24 Hind and Mi-8 Hip gunships, and at least one tank (most probably two T-72s and one either T-80 or T-90) as well as several BTR armoured personnel carriers.

Many local civilians also joined in the battle, having brought along their own weapons. Afterwards, 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, as many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves.^{[citation needed]}

The attack was followed by more large explosions of further detonating terrorist bombs, totally destroying the gym and setting much of the building on fire.^{[citation needed]}

The Aftermath[edit]

Fatalities
Hostages	344
Emergency workers	4
Special forces	11
Total	359

By 15:00, two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. However, fighting was still continuing in the grounds as evening fell, and three gunmen were located in the basement along with a number of hostages. They were eventually killed, along with the hostages they were holding.

During the battle a group of 13 hostage-takers, including two women, broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. The women reportedly tried to pass themselves off as medical personnel.

Several hostage-takers were believed to have entered a 2-story additional building. The building was destroyed by tanks and flamethrowers around 21:00, according to the Ossetian committee's report^[11].

Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Fridinsky said that 31 of 32 attackers had been confirmed dead and one had been seized.

One suspected hostage-taker was beaten to death by the fathers of hostages when he was injured and driven to the hospital (see the article in Izvestia below). Another suspected terrorist was lynched on the scene, an event filmed by the Sky News crew.

At least one surviving female hostage committed suicide after returning home^[12].

The Russian government has been heavily criticized by many of the local people who, days after the end of the siege, did not know whether their children were living or dead. Some human remains were even found by a local man in the nearby garbage dump several months later, prompting further outrage.

During the operation 11 fighters of the special groups Alpha and Vympel were killed, among them the commander of Alpha - the highest casualties in a single engagement in these units' history. Wounds of varying severity were received by more than 30 fighters of the OSNAZ special forces.

Later it was reported that an unknown number of survivors may have died as a result of a government-ordered vaccination called Nalaxon meant to counter the effects of Fentanyl-based poisons^[13].

Days 6 and 7[edit]

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a two day national mourning for September 6, 2004 and September 7, 2004. The second of these days saw 135,000 people join an anti-terror government rally on the Red Square in Moscow. Putin then cancelled planned meetings with German chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Hamburg and in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Identities of those responsible[edit]

Initially, the identity of the attackers was not immediately clear. It was widely assumed that they were separatists from nearby Chechnya, but Presidential Aide Aslambek Aslakhanov denied it, saying "They were not Chechens. When I started talking with them in Chechen, they had answered: We do not understand, speak Russian".

The Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov quickly denied that his forces were involved in the siege, condemning the action through a statement issued by his envoy Akhmed Zakayev.

On September 17, 2004, Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev issued a statement claiming responsibility for Beslan school siege. [2][3] Newspaper reports also linked his Ingush deputy, Magomet Yevloyev, to the school attack.

The Russian government had stated that the attackers were an international group consisting of connnections to al-Qaeda, including the claim that Abu Omar as-Seif financed the attack . Critics claim that this was a veiled attempt to simply bring Western countries such as the United States into believing that Chechnya should be considered a front in the War on Terror.

Some of the 32 hostage-takers are tentatively named:

Polkovnik Ruslan Tagirovich Khochubarov (leader, disputed identity)
Vladimir Khodov - nicknamed Abdullah, Ossetian from nearby Elkhotovo where he was wanted for detonating a bomb in the marketplace. (leader, though terrorist leader Basayev has since said he was an FSB double agent)
Magomed Yevloyev - nicknamed Magas, Ingush national also involved in the Basayev's attack on Nazran (leader)
Ali Taziyev - Ingush ex-policeman, debate rages whether an alias/stolen identity of Khochubarov or Yevloyev
Doku Umarov - 40-year-old warlord that hostages reportedly claimed to recognise, saying he was the only one to not wear a mask. He definitely did not die in Beslan however, since he is still an active Chechen field commander[4] ^{[dubious – discuss]}
Khaula Nazirova - 45-year-old member of Black Widows from Grozny, husband had been tortured to death five years earlier by Russians (possibly a leader)
her 18-year-old son - cousins were killed a year earlier

her 16-year-old daughter - cousins were killed a year earlier when Russia bombed a school in Chechnya
Khizir-Ali Akhmedov
Magomed Aushev
Sultan Kamurzaev
Magomet Khochubarov - had a prior conviction for possessing illegal firearms
Iznaur Kodzoyev
Nur-Pashi Kulayev - 24-year-old Chechen, the sole surviving hostage-taker who was sentenced to life in prison.
Hanpashi Kulayev - one-armed brother of the above, a former bodyguard of Shamil Basayev, also called Khan
Adam Kushtov - 17-year-old Ingush who fled the 1992 ethnic cleansing in North Ossetia to Ingushetia
Abdul-Azim Labazanov - 31-year-old Chechen, born in Kazakhstan, initially fought on the federal side in the First Chechen War
Arsen Merzhoyev - 25-year-old Chechen native of Engenoi
Mairbek Shainekkhanov (also spelled Mayrbek Shaybekhanov) - arrested shortly before the school attack
Buran Tetradze - 31-year-old Georgian, native of Rustavi in Georgia, disputed by security minister[5]
Issa Torshkhoev - 26-year-old Ingush native of Malgobek where he was unable to find work - five of his friends were killed in March 2004 after his house was raided by Russian police. Had a prior conviction for robbery.
Musa Tsechoyev - 35-year-old Ingush native of Sagopshi, owned the GAZ-66 that drove the hostage-takers to the school, suspected.
Bei-Alla Tsechoyev - 31-year-old brother of above, also spelled Bay or Ala. Had a prior conviction for possessing illegal firearms. Body identified in November 2004.
Osman Larussi, a British Algerian, who had already been reported killed earlier.[6]
Yacine Benalia, who had already been reported killed earlier.[7]
Slav nicknamed only Fantomas - thought to have also been a bodyguard to Shamil Basayev, his body was identified by Nurpashi as "a gorilla-like bald-headed man, dressed in a vest and black uniform trousers".
a Negroid
a Russian-Korean

On September 12th 2005 however, the lead prosecutor against Kulayev announced that only 22 of the 32 bodies had been identified, lending more confusion to which identities are confirmed.[8]

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

Five unnamed 'suspects' were killed around the same time, though their names are unknown[9]

Demands[edit]

The hostage-takers in Beslan were reported to have made the following demands:

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

Investigations[edit]

ITAR-TASS reported a territorial law enforcement source told them that militants disguised as repairmen had concealed weapons and explosives in the school in July 2004 after visiting three schools in Beslan, but this version was later refuted.

The suspected hostage-taker Nur-Pashi Kulayev, 24, born in Chechnya, was captured and 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" (Colonel) and by Khodov, 28, who was a suspect in the May 15, 2004, Moscow-Vladikavkaz train bombing.

According to Kulayev, Polkovnik shot a militant and detonated two female suicide bombers because they objected to capturing children in the midst of the siege.

Kulayev recognized the body of a short man with a barrel-like torso, a fiery red beard and a freckled face as Polkovnik. The official investigators identified Polkovnik as Ruslan Tagirovich Khochubarov born in the village of Galashki of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic in 1972 [10].

The official version of the Polkovnik's identity was refuted in the message attributed to Basayev. According to the message, Polkovnik was a colonel of the Ichkeria forces Orstkhoyev. The message suggested that the Kulayev's testimony could be forced by his interrogators.

The authorities linked the third body to Magomet Yevloyev nicknamed Magas. Magas was an Ingush from the Chechen capital Grozny who, together with the notorious Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, prepared an attack on Ingushetia on June 22, 2004, in which 98 people were killed.

Kulayev recognized the body of a bald-headed man dressed in a vest and black uniform trousers as belonging to a militant nicknamed Fantomas.

Nur-Pashi Kulayev is represented by Umar Sikoyev.

At the press conference with foreign journalists Vladimir Putin rejected the prospect of an open public inquiry (The Guardian, September 7, 2004) but cautiously agreed with an idea of investigation (that is, a parliamentary commission) by the Duma. He warned though that the latter might turn into a "political show".

On November 27, 2004, the Interfax news agency reported Alexander Torhsin, head of the parliamentary commission, as saying that there was evidence of involvement by a foreign intelligence agency. He declined to say which, but said "when we gather enough convincing evidence, we won't hide it".

On January 28, 2005 the parliamentary commission revealed their investigation found that Russian and Beslan government officials did not do all there best to prevent the attack.

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."

On December 26, 2005 Russian prosecutors investigating the siege on the school claimed that authorities had made no mistakes. Family members of the victims of the attacks have claimed the security forces of incompetence, and have demanded that authorities be held accountable.[11]

Criminal trial[edit]

On May 17, 2005, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole survivor of the suspected hostage-takers, was put on trial in Vladikavkaz. He was charged with terrorism, murder and hostage-taking[12], and plead guilty to seven of the accusations[13]. Albert Pliyev was appointed as his lawyer. In May 2006, he was found to have committed an act of terrorism.[14]

Domestic repercussions[edit]

Many agreed the handling of the siege could have repercussions on Vladimir Putin's administration. Despite earlier promises to peacefully resolve the crisis, Russian special forces resorted to armed force, failed to keep the battleground secure from entry by civilians or exit by the militants, and provided inconsistent reports of the situation to the media.

Putin has since acknowledged that widespread graft and corruption hampered efforts to reform the intelligence agencies and prevent terrorist attacks such as the siege at Beslan. ^{[citation needed]}

Two reporters known as openly critical to the government could not get to Beslan. Andrey Babitsky, a journalist with the Russian service of Radio Free Europe — Radio Liberty, was indicted of mischief after an alleged conflict with security guards in the Moscow Vnukovo Airport and sentenced to a five-day arrest (see external links). The Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya fell into a coma in the airplane bound to Rostov-On-Don and had her health seriously damaged. There are concerns that both incidents were provoked by the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. Pro-government allies point out that RFE/RL is a US propaganda tool funded initially by CIA. They link Babitsky to Chechen militants and find Politkovskaya's mistake in being Chechen-friendly.

According to a poll by Levada-Center conducted a week after Beslan crisis, 83% of polled Russians believe that the government has been hiding at least a part of the truth about Beslan events from them [15].

Regional medical workers were stripped of their mobile phones and forbidden to leave local hospitals at the end of their shifts, in what is suspected to be a move to suppress leaks of casualty figures and related information.

North Ossetian Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiev resigned shortly after the crisis. At the same time, Vladimir Putin fired the head of the republic's Federal Security Service (FSB) branch, Valery Andreyev. [16]

The Committee of Beslan Mothers also called for Putin to dismiss the North Ossetian president Alexander Dzasokhov. Dzasokhov resigned in May 2005, claiming that he has decided "to give way to a younger generation". [17]

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 Saturday, September 4, 2004, issue [18]. 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 (listen to CBC's The Current).

Increased security measures have been introduced in Russian cities. More than 10,000 people without proper documents have been detained by Moscow police. At least one incident of police violence has been recorded. Magomet Tolboev, an aide to Duma deputy from Dagestan, was beaten on a street in Moscow by two policemen because of his Chechen-sounding name.

Russian president Vladimir Putin had proposed changes to the political system. According to his plan, governors of Russia's oblasts, which were directly elected under the current system, are now appointed by the president. The election system for Russian Duma has also been changed. The reform plans drew criticism from the United States and European countries, as well as from Russia's liberals. Some critics have alleged that Putin is trying to increase his personal power, using the Beslan crisis as an excuse.

At the same time Putin suggested to create the Public Chamber that would control state bureaucracy, law enforcement and task force bodies.

Russian public appears to be generally supportive of increased security measures. Levada-Center poll found 58% of Russians supporting stricter anti-terrorism laws and death penalty for terrorism. 33% would support banning all Chechens from entering Russian cities. [19]

A year later, it was reported that an unknown number of survivors may have died as a result of a government-ordered vaccination called Nalaxon meant to counter the effects of Fentanyl-based poisons.[20]

Charity efforts[edit]

Charity effort by The Sun, a tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom

Countries and charities around the world donated to funds set up to assist the families and children that were involved in the hostage-taking. As of the end of 2004 the International Foundation For Terror Act Victims had raised over $1.1 million with a goal of $10 million.

The Beslan town council, itself having organised a charity fund, announced that it would donate $36,000 to aid the victims of the December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean Earthquake. The council stated that "The whole world reacted to our tragedy, so we cannot remain indifferent either".

In January 2005, an international group representing the organization "Children As the Peacemakers" [21] travelled to Moscow and Beslan on a Peace Mission. The group consisted of 9 Americans, 2 Canadians and 1 Japanese in addition to guides and translators. There were four children in the delegation. The mission was to create a new section of the 'Banner of Hope' dedicated to the victims.

During Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's visit to China in November of 2005, the Chinese Health Ministry announced that they were sending doctors to Beslan, and offered free medical care to any of the victims who still needed treatment.[22]

Main article: Beslan charity efforts.

Films[edit]

Beslan (2009). Feature film produced by Firefly Films. Producer: Matthew Hobbs. Currently in development.
Children of Beslan (2005). Produced and directed by Ewa Ewart and Leslie Woodhead. HBO Documentary Films and BBC co-production.
Three Days in September (2006). Directed by Joe Halderman, narrated by Julia Roberts. Full Credits