Masked attackers with grenades and suicide-bomb belts seized a school in North Ossetia on Wednesday morning as 300 to 400 children, parents and teachers attended festivities celebrating the first day of school.
At least two people were dead as a stand-off between the attackers and federal forces who surrounded the school stretched into the night. Fears were growing that the death toll in the fourth terrorist attack in a week would rise drastically before the crisis ended. Previous hostage-takings have cost the lives of hundreds of people.
The attackers threatened to kill 50 children for every one of their own killed by federal forces and 20 for every one wounded. Regional education officials said 120 children were in the school Wednesday night.
The New York Times reported that the attackers claimed to be associated with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who was behind bloody hostage-taking raids on Moscow's Dubrokva Theater in 2002 and a Budyonnovsk hospital in 1995.
They are demanding the immediate withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya, an end of combat operations there and the release of rebels caught in raids on Ingushetia in June, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, adviser to President Vladimir Putin on Chechnya, told Interfax on Wednesday morning. He said they were continuing to voice the same demands Wednesday evening.
The attackers demanded to meet with North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and Leonid Roshal, the renowned doctor who negotiated with the Chechen rebels who took 700 people hostage at Dubrovka.
The head of the local branch of the Federal Security Service, Valery Andreyev, said Wednesday evening that authorities had established contact with the hostage-takers. "We have some information that will allow us to plan further actions," he said, without elaborating, in televised remarks.
The raiders' leader is using the alias Magas in radio communications, RIA-Novosti reported, citing unidentified law enforcement officers. Magas was the alias used by Magomed Yevloyev, who led the Ingush raids.
The group of 15 to 25 armed men and women drove up in a stolen police truck to School No. 1 in the town of Beslan, about 10 kilometers west of the border with Ingushetia, at about 9:30 a.m. Students and parents were attending festivities marking the start of the new school year.
Gunfire broke out as federal forces rushed to cordon off the building, killing two, said North Ossetia Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev. The dead included a father who had come to see his child off to school and one attacker.
Regional health officials reported that four people were killed and 10 wounded in the early hours of the siege, including two police officers who were guarding the school and resisted the attackers. Some news reports put the death toll as high as eight.
The attackers mined the building and surrounding area and threatened to blow up the school if federal forces tried to storm it.
Shortly after the seizure, they threw a note out of a window demanding that the two presidents and the doctor come to the school. Roshal was negotiating with the attackers Wednesday night.
Seventeen people managed to escape after hiding in a boiler room, Channel One television reported.
NTV television showed footage early Wednesday of a soldier in a bulletproof vest racing to safety with young girl in a flowered dress.
Television footage showed hundreds of tearful parents and relatives gathered outside the school cordon, demanding information and accusing the authorities of failing to protect their children.
Occasional gunshots and explosions could be heard from inside the cordoned area, but troops did not move toward the school.
The captors, who were wearing camouflage, refused to negotiate with anyone but the three men named in their note, turning away North Ossetia's top mufti when he arrived at the school Wednesday afternoon. They also refused to accept food or water for the hostages.
The New York Times reported in its Thursday edition that a call made to the school was answered by a man who identified himself as a spokesman for the attackers and said they were part of "The Second Group of Salakhin Riadus Shakhidi." Salakhin Riadus Shakhidi is a battalion of suicide fighters formed and headed by Basayev.
"Wipe your sniffles," the man said, speaking crudely in Russian with a Chechen accent, when asked what they hoped to discuss with the officials, The New York Times reported.
Security was stepped up at schools across the country Wednesday after bomb blasts linked to separatists in Chechnya downed two passenger planes last week and killed 10 people outside the Rizhskaya metro station Tuesday. Four police officers were guarding the Beslan school, which with 800 students was the largest in the town of 30,000 people.
Fears of more bloodshed in Beslan are well-founded.
A total of 129 people died when special forces stormed the Dubrovka theater in October 2002 to end the hostage-taking crisis there, most from the effects of a gas pumped into the theater to knock out the rebels. All 41 rebels were killed.
About 120 people died in gun battles after Basayev took 1,000 people hostage in the hospital in the southern city of Budyonnovsk. Then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin personally conducted telephone negotiations with Basayev, which were broadcast on television.
An agreement was eventually reached under which the hostages were freed and Basayev and his rebels were allowed to flee back to Chechnya.
Beslan previously saw a hostage-taking crisis on June 8, 1998, when armed attackers hijacked a passenger bus traveling from Nazran, Ingushetia, to Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, with 40 passengers.
All passengers unharmed after a three-day stand-off.
At least two people were dead as a stand-off between the attackers and federal forces who surrounded the school stretched into the night. Fears were growing that the death toll in the fourth terrorist attack in a week would rise drastically before the crisis ended. Previous hostage-takings have cost the lives of hundreds of people.
The attackers threatened to kill 50 children for every one of their own killed by federal forces and 20 for every one wounded. Regional education officials said 120 children were in the school Wednesday night.
The New York Times reported that the attackers claimed to be associated with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who was behind bloody hostage-taking raids on Moscow's Dubrokva Theater in 2002 and a Budyonnovsk hospital in 1995.
They are demanding the immediate withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya, an end of combat operations there and the release of rebels caught in raids on Ingushetia in June, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, adviser to President Vladimir Putin on Chechnya, told Interfax on Wednesday morning. He said they were continuing to voice the same demands Wednesday evening.
The attackers demanded to meet with North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and Leonid Roshal, the renowned doctor who negotiated with the Chechen rebels who took 700 people hostage at Dubrovka.
The head of the local branch of the Federal Security Service, Valery Andreyev, said Wednesday evening that authorities had established contact with the hostage-takers. "We have some information that will allow us to plan further actions," he said, without elaborating, in televised remarks.
The raiders' leader is using the alias Magas in radio communications, RIA-Novosti reported, citing unidentified law enforcement officers. Magas was the alias used by Magomed Yevloyev, who led the Ingush raids.
The group of 15 to 25 armed men and women drove up in a stolen police truck to School No. 1 in the town of Beslan, about 10 kilometers west of the border with Ingushetia, at about 9:30 a.m. Students and parents were attending festivities marking the start of the new school year.
Gunfire broke out as federal forces rushed to cordon off the building, killing two, said North Ossetia Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev. The dead included a father who had come to see his child off to school and one attacker.
Regional health officials reported that four people were killed and 10 wounded in the early hours of the siege, including two police officers who were guarding the school and resisted the attackers. Some news reports put the death toll as high as eight.
The attackers mined the building and surrounding area and threatened to blow up the school if federal forces tried to storm it.
Shortly after the seizure, they threw a note out of a window demanding that the two presidents and the doctor come to the school. Roshal was negotiating with the attackers Wednesday night.
Seventeen people managed to escape after hiding in a boiler room, Channel One television reported.
NTV television showed footage early Wednesday of a soldier in a bulletproof vest racing to safety with young girl in a flowered dress.
Television footage showed hundreds of tearful parents and relatives gathered outside the school cordon, demanding information and accusing the authorities of failing to protect their children.
Occasional gunshots and explosions could be heard from inside the cordoned area, but troops did not move toward the school.
The captors, who were wearing camouflage, refused to negotiate with anyone but the three men named in their note, turning away North Ossetia's top mufti when he arrived at the school Wednesday afternoon. They also refused to accept food or water for the hostages.
 Musa Sadulayev / AP North Ossetian women waiting for news of the stand-off near the Beslan school on Wednesday. The school is the town's largest. |  |
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"Wipe your sniffles," the man said, speaking crudely in Russian with a Chechen accent, when asked what they hoped to discuss with the officials, The New York Times reported.
Security was stepped up at schools across the country Wednesday after bomb blasts linked to separatists in Chechnya downed two passenger planes last week and killed 10 people outside the Rizhskaya metro station Tuesday. Four police officers were guarding the Beslan school, which with 800 students was the largest in the town of 30,000 people.
Fears of more bloodshed in Beslan are well-founded.
A total of 129 people died when special forces stormed the Dubrovka theater in October 2002 to end the hostage-taking crisis there, most from the effects of a gas pumped into the theater to knock out the rebels. All 41 rebels were killed.
About 120 people died in gun battles after Basayev took 1,000 people hostage in the hospital in the southern city of Budyonnovsk. Then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin personally conducted telephone negotiations with Basayev, which were broadcast on television.
An agreement was eventually reached under which the hostages were freed and Basayev and his rebels were allowed to flee back to Chechnya.
Beslan previously saw a hostage-taking crisis on June 8, 1998, when armed attackers hijacked a passenger bus traveling from Nazran, Ingushetia, to Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, with 40 passengers.
All passengers unharmed after a three-day stand-off.