The Hindu : Front Page : Gunmen seize school in Russia

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Thursday, Sep 02, 2004

Front Page

Gunmen seize school in Russia

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, SEPT. 1. Gunmen seized a school in southern Russia today taking scores of people hostage and demanding withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.

About 20 masked, armed people burst into the courtyard of the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, about 9 a.m. when children, teachers and parents had gathered for the opening of a new academic year.

The attackers drove the hostages to the school gym and mined the school and the territory around it. They placed children in front of windows and vowed to blow up the building if police tried to storm them.

Women among attackers

Officials gave contradictory figures about the number of hostages held at the school, with estimates varying from 120 to 400. Over 50 children escaped in the first minutes of the attack and 15 more were later allowed to go. Three persons were reported killed and 11 wounded when the gunmen clashed with police. Eyewitnesses said the attackers included two or four women wearing suicide bomb belts.

The attackers were identified as members of the so-called "Ingush Jamaat," a militant group based in the Russian region of Ingushetia, which is closely linked to Chechen rebels.

Demands

In a hand-written note the gunmen threw out of the school window, they demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the release of the militants arrested in Ingushetia for taking part in a rebel raid on two Ingush towns earlier this summer, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Today's school seizure came a day after a bomb blast outside a Moscow metro station killing 11 and wounding 51 persons. The blast was claimed by "The Islambouli Brigades," the same Islamist group that took responsibility for blowing up two Russian airliners with 90 people aboard a week ago.

Nagayeva sisters

Investigators suspect that Tuesday's attack in Moscow was carried out by Roza Nagayeva, a sister of Amnat Nagayeva, one of the two suspected suicide bombers who downed the Russian planes on August 24.

The Nagayeva sisters left Chechnya earlier this month together with Satsitsa Jebirkhanova, the other suspected plane bomber, and her friend, Mariam Taburova, who is still at large and is feared to be preparing for another terror attack.

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