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<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Time and time again we see what cowards these Islamic terrorist are. This time they are hiding behind school children.
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BELSAN, Russia (AP) -- More than a dozen attackers wearing suicide bomb belts seized a southern Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people -- half of them children -- and threatening to blow up the building if police tried to rescue them. Source

[ 09-01-2004, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

I posted this in the 2 russian planes crash thread.

It's interresting to see that these terrorists are using women as well for actions like these.

BESLAN, September 1 (Itar-Tass) -- The hostage-takers inside the school in Beslan have warned they will be killing fifty children for each dead militant, and twenty, for each injured one, North Ossetian Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev has said.

Many of the hostages, he said were first and second year students.

link

At least some progress is being made

Quote:

BESLAN, Russia - Camouflaged security agents carried babies to safety after militants holding hundreds of hostages at a school released at least 31 women and children Thursday, and officials expressed hope that negotiations would bring more progress in the standoff in southern Russia.

But a crowd of hostages' relatives keeping vigil outside the school was shaken when a pair of explosions went off just ahead of the release. Officials said militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that got too close to the school.

The developments came after a night of telephone negotiations between Russian authorities and the militants, who stormed the school Wednesday, rounding up around 350 children and adults into a gym and threatening to blow up the building if police launch an assault.

Local official Lev Dzugayev called the release "the first success" and expressed hope for further progress in negotiations. He has said between 15 and 24 militants were thought to be in the school, which has been surrounded and cordoned off by security forces.

In his first public comment on the standoff, President Vladimir Putin pledged to do everything possible to save the hostages' lives. "We understand these acts are not only against private citizens of Russia but against Russia as a whole," he said. "What is happening in North Ossetia is horrible."

The rescue operation's headquarters reported that 26 women and children were released in one group, and that another group included three women and two children.

Camouflage-clad security agents carried babies and young children — some wrapped in blankets, some naked — from the scene and into cars. An Associated Press Television News reporter saw soldiers escorting two women and at least two children away from the school.

Officials at the crisis headquarters said the releases came after mediation by Ruslan Aushev, an Afghan war veteran and former president of the neighboring Ingushetia region who is a respected figure in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region.

As Dzugayev announced some of the releases, a crowd of relatives swarmed around him, trying to find out if their loved ones were among those freed.

The hostage-taking in Beslan, a town of about 30,000 in the southern region of North Ossetia, appeared to be the latest in a string of attacks by insurgents from the nearby war-town republic of Chechnya. Suspicion has fallen on Chechen rebels, although no claim of responsibility has been made.

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Well looks like it is over. I am not sure if it was a really great ending however, it would have been better if less people were killed and none of the militants escaped.</font>

BESLAN, Russia (AP) -- Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. More than 100 bodies were reportedly found in the gymnasium where hostages had been held.
Source

[ 09-03-2004, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]