Sept. 8, 2004
By Peter Jennings
Photo: Russia's Federal Security Service on Wednesday offered a reward for information on Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, seen here in a 1997 file photo. Emile Wamsteker / AP file
MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Security Service has promised up to 300 million rubles ($10.3 million) for accurate information that could help "neutralize" Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, and a military official reasserted Russia's right to strike terrorists the world over.
"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases, we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, told reporters.
News of the reward broke as state television was broadcasting footage of Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov briefing President Vladimir Putin on the investigation into the taking of more than 1,200 hostages in a school in southern Russia last week. It was the first official admission that the number of hostages had been so high; initially the government said about 350 people had been seized, and over the weekend a regional official said the number had been 1,181.
The Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said the two rebel leaders had been responsible for "inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation," the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. Russian officials have accused Basayev and Maskhadov of masterminding last week's attack in Beslan.
Ustinov said 326 hostages had been killed and 727 wounded in the attack, which ended Friday in a wave of explosions and gunfire as hostages tried to flee, and special forces and armed civilians tried to aid them. He said 210 bodies had been identified, and forensic workers were also trying to identify 32 body fragments. The death toll could rise, Ustinov said.
Rally against terrorism
Tens of thousands of Russians massed outside the Kremlin on Tuesday to rally against terrorism. Demonstrators at the rally, which authorities said drew about 130,000 people, bore banners with slogans such as "We won't give Russia to terrorists" and "The enemy will be crushed; victory will be ours."
"I have been crying for so many days and I came here to feel that we are actually together," said Vera Danilina, 57.
The demonstration, organized by a pro-government trade union, was heavily advertised on state-controlled television for two days, with prominent actors appealing to citizens to turn out. Banners bore the white, blue and red of Russia's flag, and speakers echoed Putin's statements that terrorists must be destroyed.
On Tuesday night, Russians got a horrific glimpse of conditions inside the school when a television station broadcast chilling images of the heavily armed, hooded assailants amid the crowd of women, children and men.
The NTV station said the pictures -- which showed hundreds of people crowded into the gym beneath a string of explosives dangling from a basketball hoop -- were recorded by the assailants.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the attack underscored how the war on terrorism was a global struggle.
“We saw vividly the extremes to which terrorists are willing to go to achieve their ends,” Rumsfeld said at a news conference.
He said that the civilized world must stay on the offensive against terrorists. “There really are no free passes in this struggle, this war,” Rumsfeld said. “No free passes for countries, no free passes for individuals.”
TIMELINE Beyond Chechnya
Actions outside of Chechnya linked to the conflict.
June 14, 1995
Chechen gunmen take 2,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, near Chechnya. After failed attempts at force, Russia negotiates the hostages' release in exchange for the gunmen's escape. More than 100 die.
Jan. 9, 1996
Chechen militants seize 3,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Kizlyar. Rebels release most, then head for Chechnya with about 100 hostages. Rebels are stopped in a village and attacked by Russian troops. At least 78 die in weeklong fight.
Jan. 16, 1996
Six Turks and three Chechens hold 255 hostages on ferry in Black Sea, threatening to blow up ship if Russia doesn't halt battles in southern Russia. The rebels surrender after three days.
March 9, 1996
Turkish sympathizer hijacks jetliner flying out of Cyprus to draw attention to situation in Chechnya. The sympathizer surrenders after plane lands in Munich, Germany.
Sept. 4, 1999
Bomb destroys a building housing Russian military officers and families in Buinaksk in Russia's Dagestan region. Sixty-four die. Russian officials blame Chechen rebels, but never prove their involvement.
Sept. 9, 1999
Explosion wrecks a nine-story apartment building in southeast Moscow, killing almost 100. Authorities suspect a Chechen bomb, although no evidence is ever provided to support the claim.
Sept. 13, 1999
A bomb destroys an apartment building in southern Moscow, killing 70. Officials blame Chechens, but nobody is ever charged in the attack.
Sept. 16, 1999
Bombs shear off the front of a nine-story apartment building in Volgodonsk, 500 miles south of Moscow. Nearly 20 are killed. Authorities again blame Chechens rebels, but nobody is charged.
March 16, 2001
Three Chechens hijack a Russian airliner leaving Istanbul and divert it to Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces storm plane, killing one hijacker and two hostages.
April 22, 2001
Some 20 gunmen hold about 120 people for 12 hours at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest Russian actions in Chechnya. The rebels later surrender to police and release the hostages.
May 4, 2002
Lone gunman holds 13 people hostage at a hotel in Istanbul to protest situation in Chechnya. The gunman surrenders after an hour.
Oct. 24, 2002
Chechen rebels seize 800 people in a Moscow theater. After a three-day standoff, Russian authorities launch a rescue attempt in which all 41 attackers are killed along with 127 hostages who succumb to a knockout gas used to incapacitate the assailants.
July 5, 2003
Double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert kills the female attackers and 15 other people.
July 10, 2003
A Russian security agent dies in Moscow while trying to defuse a bomb a woman had tried to carry into a cafe on central Moscow’s main street.
Aug. 1, 2003
50 people are killed in Mozdok, North Ossetia, when a truck bomb smashes through the gates of a hospital where Russian soldiers injured in Chechnya are treated.
Sept. 16, 2003
Two suicide bombers drive a truck laden with explosives into a government security services building near Chechnya, killing three people and injuring 25.
Dec. 5, 2003
Suicide bombing on commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns attack as bid to destabilize the country two days before parliamentary elections. Six people were killed in two blasts on the same railway line in September.
Dec. 9, 2003
Female suicide bomber blows herself up outside Moscow’s National Hotel, across from the Kremlin and Red Square, killing five bystanders.
Feb. 6, 2004
An explosion rips through a subway car in the Moscow metro during rush hour, killing 41 people.
June 21- 22, 2004
Chechen rebels kill at least 92 people, mostly law-enforcement officers and officials, while setting fire to police and government buildings around Nazran, the main city of the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.
Aug. 25, 2004
Chechen suicide bombers detonate explosives that kill 90 people on board two Russian planes.
Aug. 31
A suspected Chechen suicide bomber detonates explosives near a subway station in Moscow, killing 10 people.
Sept. 3, 2004
A Chechen gang detonates explosives in a school in Beslan, southern Russia, where more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, are held captive for 3 days. At least 365 are killed in the explosions and ensuing gunfight, including more than 150 children.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters
Seeking extradition
The Foreign Ministry said Russia would take new steps seeking the extradition of people it says are linked with terrorism, including Chechen rebel representatives Akhmed Zakayev and Ilyas Akhmadov.
Zakayev, an envoy for separatist leader and former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, has been granted refugee status in Britain. Akhmadov is in the United States.
The hostage-taking and other recent attacks "will help many in the West, where Zakayev and Akhmadov have found political asylum, to see the true face of terror and understand the measure of their delusion," the ministry said.
At the muddy cemetery in Beslan, where gravediggers have opened up two new tracts in the past three days, relatives opened the tiny coffin of 8-year-old Vasily Reshetnyak, touched his forehead and kissed him goodbye. A favorite toy -- a red car -- was placed alongside his body.
North Ossetians and liberal Russian politicians and newspapers have criticized authorities' handling of the crisis, which some say further exposed the ineffectiveness of the Kremlin's hard-line policies in Chechnya.
Support for Putin
Some mourners in Beslan criticized Putin, saying he flew into the grief-stricken town before dawn Saturday because he didn't want to face its people.
But for the most part, the popular president has avoided the brunt of the anger over the terror attacks.
"Of course I support him, and it's necessary to be even more harsh with terrorists," said Galina Kiselyova, 66, a history teacher who was at the Moscow rally. "We cannot let go of Chechnya -- the Caucasus is ours."
"Putin, we're with you," read a banner at the rally.
Militants seized the Beslan school on Sept. 1, a day after a suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people and just over a week after two Russian passenger planes crashed following explosions and killed all 90 people aboard -- two attacks authorities suspect were linked to the war in Chechnya.
In the footage shown Tuesday on NTV television, hundreds of hostages were shown seated in the school's cramped gym. Many of them had their hands behind their heads. A thick streak of blood stained the wood floor.
Football-sized bundles of explosives were attached to wires and strings hanging from a basketball hoop. One attacker in camouflage and a black hood stood amid the hostages with a boot on what NTV said was a book rigged with a detonator.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5881958/