Sept. 3, 2004
Photo: Sept. 3: A man carries an injured child who escaped from a seized school in Beslan.
BESLAN, Russia — A hostage crisis at a school in southern Russiain which more than 100 people have been killed has not ended despite previous reports, FOX News has learned. Officials said as many as three terrorists were still holding children captive even after soldiers charged into the building on Friday.
Security officials told FOX News three terrorists remained blockaded in the basement of the school, possibly including the leader of the operation, and that they were still holding an unknown number of children.
At least 100 bodies were found Friday in the sweltering school gymnasium, where many of the hostages were being held, but a Russian presidential aide said the death toll could climb above 150. A correspondent for the Interfax news agency reported that some were killed when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion before the main assault began.
Hundreds more were wounded during the siege and subsequent raid by Russian soldiers. Officials said the number of injured was more than 400, at least half of them children.
Other casualties were reported when the suspected Chechen terroristsopened fire on hostages as they fled the building and in fighting that went on for several hours afterward. The regional health minister reported that 409 people were wounded, including at least 218 children.
Officials also told FOX News that 10 of the 20 terrorists killed by Russian soldiers were Arabs.
Jihadists from the Middle East have joined the Chechen uprising since it began after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, but their numbers have always been small, according to Alexei Malashenko at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Chechen fighters, who come from a less restrictive Muslim tradition, have also tended to chafe under the Arab fighters' extremism.
Unprecedented Terrorist Act
Photo: Sept. 3: AA woman is assisted near the school where militants were holding people captive in Beslan.
The hostage-taking was an unprecedented event in the region, according to a FOX News military analyst.
"The is a whole new escalation," said Air Force Lieutenant General (Ret.) Tom McInerney.
McInerney cautioned against criticizing Russia's security forces for their handling of the three-day-long standoff.
"You can't do pinpoint strike. We have never seen such a large number of hostages taken by terrorists [in this region] before."
McInerney also said Washington had reason for alarm. "The question is whether it's going to roll West into Europe and into our own country," he said.
Commandos had stormed the Beslan school earlier Friday and battled terrorists holding hundreds of hostages as crying children — some naked and covered in blood — fled through explosions and gunfire.
But some of the terrorists changed into civilian clothing and were able to confuse security forces, officials told FOX News.
As many as 1,500 hostages, most of them women and children, had been held in the three-day standoff since militants seized the building Wednesday.
The captives were taken by heavily armed terrorists who were making a series of demands involving the war-torn region of Chechnya, including a request that Russian troops leave the area.
About a dozen hostage-takers escaped, with the Interfax new agency reporting that they split into three groups to blend in with the hostages and took refuge in a home nearby. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house, Interfax said, and gunfire rang out through the town for hours.
The White House branded the hostage-taking "barbaric" and "despicable" and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests with the terrorists. "The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
President Bush was briefed on developments in Russia Friday morning before a re-election rally in Pennsylvania. He did not talk about the Russian terrorism during his speech.
Alexander Dzasokhov — the president of the North Ossetiaregion, where the school is located — said the terrorists had demanded independence for the nearby war-torn region of Chechnya.
The school seizure came a day after a suspected Chechen homicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow subway station, killing nine people, and just over a week after 90 people died in two plane crashes that are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya.
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the region in the past decade prompted forceful Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. The most recent, the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.
Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny republic.
Huge columns of smoke billowed from the school, where windows were shattered, part of the roof was gone and another part was charred. The scene around the school was chaotic, with people running through the streets, the wounded carried off on stretchers. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way."
Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children — some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood — to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted.
The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the terrorists took the building on Wednesday. The terrorists had refused to allow food or water be brought into the school throughout the standoff.
"I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all right. It's all right."
Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of four children and a woman, and the ITAR-Tass news agency reported that at least seven people were killed, including five militants.
Regional emergency officials said 250 hostages were wounded, including 180 children. The head of a children's hospital in the regional capital of Vladikavkaz said five of the 68 wounded children brought there were in grave condition. Interfax reported more than 400 wounded, including hostages and local residents.
A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers, and told the AP that Russian officials expected "very many" wounded. In another part of town, several dead were covered with white sheets, and a woman peered under one to see who the slain person was.
The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff after terrorists agreed to let Russia retrieve the bodies of people killed early in the raid. Explosions went off as the emergency personnel went to get the bodies at around 1 p.m., and hostages took the noise as a signal to flee, officials said.
Terrorists opened fire on fleeing hostages and security forces returned fire. Once the hostage-takers sought to flee, commandos moved in.
Terrorists reportedly fired at children who ran from the building, and unconfirmed reports said some of the hostage-takers, possibly including women wearing bomb belts, had fled during the chaos and may have taken hostages with them.
Interfax said the school's roof had collapsed — possibly from the explosives some militants had strapped to their bodies. The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm.
The identities of the terrorists were murky. Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence.
"They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy," said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. "I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request."
On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children, and Russian officials had been in negotiations with the militants since they had seized the building Wednesday.
There were conflicting reports of the number of hostages, with official saying about 350 and people among a small group freed on Wednesday saying there were about 1,500.
President Vladimir Putinhad said that everything possible would be done to end the "horrible" crisis and save the lives of the children.
FOX News' Dana Lewis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,131345,00.html