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The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to by the media as the Beslan school siege) began when armed multinational terrorists began holding hundreds of schoolchildren and adults hostage on September 1 2004 at a school in the Russian town of Beslan in North Ossetia. It ended after shooting broke out on September 3, 2004 that resulted in the deaths of hundreds.
The hostage-takers were reportedly a combination of Chechens, Ingush and other nationalities. On the third day of the standoff, there was a shootout between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces, leaving an aftermath of more than 335 people killed (156 of them children), about 200 missing and hundreds more wounded.
At 09:30 local time (GMT+3) on 1 September 2004 — the morning of the first day of the autumn term — a group of around thirty armed men and women, arriving in a GAZel and a GAZ-66 military lorry, stormed Beslan's Middle School Number One, whose pupils are aged from seven to eighteen years old. Most of the attackers wore black ski masks and a few were seen carrying explosive belts. After an exchange of gunfire with police, in which five officers and one perpetrator were killed, the attackers seized the school building taking more than 1,300 people hostage. This number was confirmed by teachers later. Most of hostages were under the age of eighteen. About fifty hostages managed to flee to safety in the initial attack.
At first there was a confusion about how many hostages were left inside. While the government claimed that there were just over 350 hostages remaining, other sources stated that there were as many as 1,000. Repeated shooting was later heard coming from the school buildings, thought by some to be for the intimidation of Russian security forces. It was later revealed that the attackers had killed twenty adult male hostages and thrown their bodies out of the building that day. The attackers were also outraged by the authorities diminishing the number of hostages.
A security cordon was soon established around the school, consisting of Russian police and army forces, Spetsnaz, including the Alpha anti-terrorist team, and members of Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del (MVD, or Interior Ministry)'s OMON unit. The attackers moved the hostages to the school gymnasium on the first day, mined the gym 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 asked for by name. Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege.
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 reportedly offered "support in any form" to Russia in dealing with the crisis.
On September 2, negotiations between Roshal and the hostage-takers proved unsuccessful, and they refused even 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.
Conditions within the school grew steadily worse. The hostage takers refused to allow any food or water into the gymnasium. Many hostages, especially children, took off their shirts and other articles of clothing because of the sweltering heat within.
In the afternoon, 26 women and infants were freed by the gunmen following new negotiations with former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev. The L.A. Times wrote that some of the mothers with two children were forced to choose one to take with them, and leave the others behind. However, at around 15:30, two explosions occured at the school about ten minutes apart from each other. These were later revealed to be the explosions of rocket-propelled grenades, which had been fired by the hostage-takers in an apparent attempt to keep the security forces well away from the school.
On the afternoon of September 3, the hostage-takers agreed to allow medical workers to remove bodies from the school grounds. The removal team began to approach the school, but in a few seconds, at around 13:04, the hostage-takers opened fire, and two large explosions were heard. Two medical workers were killed; the rest fled under a hail of gunfire. Part of the gymnasium collapsed, allowing a group of about thirty hostages to escape, but they were fired on by the gunmen; some of the escapees were killed.
These two accounts may be reconcilable. Newsru September 17 . The man lost his eye and saw others hurt by the blast which killed the bombers long before the storm.
It appears that at this point the Russian special forces activated their immediate action plan to storm the school to rescue whomever was left inside. A chaotic battle broke out as the special forces sought to enter the school and cover the escape of the hostages. A massive level of force was used; as well as the special forces, the regular army and Interior Ministry troops were also engaged, as were helicopter gunships (including Mi-24 Hinds and Mi-8 Hips) and at least one tank. Many local civilians also joined in the battle, having brought along their own weapons.
The hostage-takers set off more large explosions, totally destroying the gym and setting much of the building on fire, while the special forces commandos blew holes in walls to allow hostages to escape. 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 hostage-takers, said by the government to number thirteen, broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Two of those thirteen were reportedly women who allegedly attempted to blend into the crowd and escape disguised as health personnel. The military cordon had been compromised by permitting the passage of hostages' relatives, dressed in civilian clothing and, in some cases, bearing firearms.
A few of the escapees were said to be cornered in a residential 2 storey house within 40 metres from the gym. Whether or not they had hostages is unknown. The house was destroyed using tanks and flame throwers by 23:00 September 3.
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).
According to official data at least 335 people died, 156 of them children, and more than 700 were wounded, mostly children. Some European news channels say the death toll could reach over the 400 mark in only a few days, because some 176 people are missing. At least one surviving female hostage committed suicide after returning home. Many other survivors remained in severe shock. Some injured died in hospitals.
The Russian government has been heavily criticised by many of the local people who, days after the end of the siege, did not know whether their children were living or dead.
During the operation 11 fighters of the special divisions "Alpha" and "Vimpel" were killed, among them the commander of "Alpha". One of the members of these divisions said that the reason for such large losses had been that fighters had first of all rescued children and the hostage-takers had then shot at their backs. Wounds of varying severity were received by more than 30 fighters in the Russian special forces divisions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a two day national mourning for September 6 and 7. On September 7, 135,000 people joined an anti-terror demonstration on the Red Square in Moscow.
On September 7th, Putin canceled the planned meeting with German chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Hamburg and in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Initially, the identity of the attackers was not immediately clear. It was widely assumed that they were separatists from nearby Chechnya, but Aslambek Aslakhanov has denied it: "They were not Chechens. When I started talking with them in Chechen, they had answered: we do not understand, speak Russian". The Russian government has stated that the attackers were an international group consisting of Arabs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Chechens, Uzbeks and even one local resident. It has been suggested that they were associated with Shamil Basayev and had earlier participated in a major terrorist attack in the Republic of Ingushetia in June 2004. The authorities have linked the hostage-takers to Islamist terrorists supporting Chechen independence.
However, some surviving hostages and other evidence from the scene of the attack has cast some doubt on the Russian governments' account. Some of the hostages reported that they did not see any Arabs among the attackers and say that the attackers spoke Russian with a Chechen accent. A videotape of the siege, taken by the hostage-takers themselves and subsequently broadcast by the Russian NTV station, showed a number of individuals who all appear to have had Caucasus rather than Middle Eastern complexions.
The Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has denied that his forces were involved in the siege. He condemned the action and all attacks against civilians via a statement issued by his envoy Akhmed Zakayev, currently resident in London. The crisis was strikingly similar to the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis and the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis in which hundreds were held hostage by Chechen fighters.
On September 17, the man who claimed responsibility for both of those attacks, Shamil Basayev, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Beslan masscre. Newspaper reports have also linked his Ingush deputy, Magomet Yevloyev, to the school attack.
Basayev also claimed responsibility for the attacks against civilians during the previous week, in which a metro station in Moscow was bombed, killing ten people, and two airliners were apparently blown up by suicide bombers, killing 89 people.
The Russian government has suggested that the hostage-takers may have been linked with al-Qaeda. Independent commentators have been sceptical about this claim, pointing out that it is politically beneficial to the government to put the attack in the context of a global "war on terror" rather than as something linked specifically to its policies in Chechnya.
An as yet unresolved question is why the hostage-takers targeted North Ossetia and Beslan in particular. A number of theories have been advanced:
The hostage-takers in Beslan are reported to have at first made the following demands:
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, has been captured and was identified by former hostages. The government-controlled Perviy Kanal showed fragments of his interrogation. Kulayev said the group was led by a Chechnya-born militant nick-named "Polkovnik" (Colonel) and by Ukraine-born Anatoliy Vladimirovitch Khodov who was a suspect in the May 15, 2004 Moscow-Vladikavkaz train bombing.
According to Kulayev, "Polkovnik" shot the leader of the militants who objected to capturing children during the Beslan event. Kulayev said that "Polkovnik" detonated two female suicide bombers using a remote control.
An anonymous source in of one of the law enforcing agencies said that according to hostages "Polkovnik" might be a Russian.
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 (see The Guardian, September 7) but cautiously agreed with an idea of investigation by Duma. He warned though that the latter might turn into a "political show".
Experts agree that failure to save lives may have serious repercussions for 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 are struggling to provide consistent reports of the situation to the media. The Russian government points out that the hostage-takers seemingly opened fire first, compelling the security forces to act in order to save the lives of the hostages.
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 (see external links) and sentenced to a five-day arrest. The Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya fell into a coma (see external links) 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 (Federal Security Service). 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.
Regional medical workers were stripped of their mobile phones (see external links) 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.
It has been reported that the interior minister of North Ossetia has resigned.
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 issue . 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.
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 has proposed major reforms to political and security system. According to his plan, governors of Russia's oblasts, which are directly elected under the current system, will be appointed by the president. The election system for Russian Duma will be also changed. The death penalty will be re-introduced and a system of security alerts will be designed. Resident registration laws will be tightened and it will become harder to buy, sell and borrow cars. 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.
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.
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