Gunmen take 200+ student hostages

[Goodspeed 0]

Gunfire is around the school not in it. School is fully controled by Spetsnaz.

[Gordy 0]

My guess it that this will be over by today or tomorrow,

right now it's special ops. in the building.

I hope no kids will get killed  

You know that 20% hostages dead is a standard.

This may or may not be fact......but still a little tasteless Gordy  

Well, that is life. Tastless and cruel.

Telling me this, ... what do you want to say? It happens every day. Everywhere. We are all victims of statistics and most often we don't have a choice whether it will be 80% or 20%.

Who decides this? Leader of the hostage takers? Putin? It will never change.

[Ironsight 1]

Gunfire is around the school not in it. School is fully controled by Spetsnaz.

Yep, MI-24's are flying arround the area to hunt the terrorists down

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

Yea i'm hearing explosions from the building on the BBC Live Feed, i'm betting they aint in full control of the building with other hostage taker's fleeing with hostages, no way are they in control.

BBC Live feed

[theavonlady 2]

Interfax English page.

I would have thought there would have been a tightly sealed perimeter around the school.

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

Their Fleeing south to the rail junction.

[Colossus 2]

Their Fleeing south to the rail junction.

And they have occupied a house somewhere in the village.

It's a war zone, even some civilians are armed.

It's just kids, what kind of terror animals is this?!

[llauma 0]

It's just kids, what kind of terror animals is this?!

Desperate... It's not like the kids have been spared in the Chechen conflict.

I would have been more surprised if something like this wouldn't had happened..

[Apollo 0]

Yeah the russian soldiers were hardly any better in the Chechen war ,mass killings ,rapings ,even of women and children were undiscrimatly executed.

Well it's the war that won Putin his ellection ,but the whole conflict is a quagmire withought an end in sight .It won't stop with this hostage crisis ,6 months from now were probably gona see another one.This crises even overshadows the fact that just a few days two airplanes were taken down presumably by Chechens with also large death toll.

I'm not a supporter of terrorism ,but personally ive always seen the Chechen independance movement as justified.

[Goodspeed 0]

Western mass media complited ugly morrons. CNN called them "hostage-takers", Reuters "rebels", FOX "rebels", BBC "hostage-takers"...

[theavonlady 2]

FOX "rebels"

Slow down. That's what Russia's Interfax called them in some of their news items.

edit: but, yes, I agree with you. They're all idiots.

[Apollo 0]

Quote[/b] ]Western mass media complited ugly morrons. CNN called them "hostage-takers", Reuters "rebels", FOX "rebels", BBC "hostage-takers"...

"rebels" is a common name given to members of seperatist movements.

They are not terrorists defacto ,they took those men in hostage with a political demand: Freedom of Chechnia from Russia.

If russia had given in to their demand (unlikely afcourse) then probably no casualty's would have fallen ,as such this initial purpose of this hostage taking was seperatism and not pure terrorism.A pure terrorist would have just gone in and blown the building to bits.

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

Quote[/b] ]Western mass media complited ugly morrons. CNN called them "hostage-takers", Reuters "rebels", FOX "rebels", BBC "hostage-takers"...

"rebels" is a common name given to members of seperatist movements.

They are not terrorists defacto ,they took those men in hostage with a political demand: Freedom of Chechnia from Russia.

If russia had given in to their demand (unlikely afcourse)  then probably no casualty's would have fallen ,as such this initial purpose of this hostage taking was seperatism and not pure terrorism.A pure terrorist would have just gone in and blown the building to bits.

Actually from what the hostages are saying is that a few of them blew themselves up at the start, a tad premptive if you ask me along with around 16 people being killed in the act of taking them hostage.

[bn880 5]

Well great... probably what happenend is the hostage takers got tired of negotiations and started some killing inside. Anyway, this is pure insanity.

[Apollo 0]

Quote[/b] ]Actually from what the hostages are saying is that a few of them blew themselves up at the start, a tad premptive if you ask me along with around 16 people being killed in the act of taking them hostage.

Well they started blowing up when the negotiations failed ,as to put more pressure on Russia probably ,and since Russia wouldn't give in to their demands the explosions were used as a solid justification for them to storm the building.it was not like casualties had fallen on day one ,so if russia would have given in from the start probably no casualties would have fallen.Afcourse the Russians knew they would never give in ,so they were waiting for the one shot or blast to have a public justification to storm the building ,they couldn't storm it withought provocation as then the public oppinion would have been devastatingg for the Russian goverment ,just like it was after the Moskou theatre crises.But the Riussians did know that eventually it had to end like this.

[Colossus 2]

It's just kids, what kind of terror animals is this?!

Desperate... It's not like the kids have been spared in the Chechen conflict.

I would have been more surprised if something like this wouldn't had happened..

I didn't say that Russian soldiers in the Chechen war was any different, they weren't any nicer. But in this you hear it on the news and read it in newspaper, and I get more effected on that then what happend in the Chechen war.

No wonder the press is the "4th world power"  

PS: After the soviet fall, why didn't the Chechen Republic split from soviet? Polen and other countrise did that.

[bn880 5]

That's the worst thing they could have done, are they stupid or don't they know the Russians will storm them if they start killing too much... it was already that the hostages weren't eating/drinking

Anyway, there was never really anyhting to gain from this.

[Longinius 1]

According to some media outlets civilians have joined in the gun fight. Looks like the Russians are in full control.... :/

[Badgerboy 0]

According to some media outlets civilians have joined in the gun fight. Looks like the Russians are in full control.... :/

Civilians? Whom are they fighting against'? Russian forces or the hostage takers? Would think the latter to be frank. Armed mob justice.

[theavonlady 2]

There's something very ridiculous about civilians in the area and the ability of terrorists to escape.

Every last resident should have been evacuated from within an established perimeter zone, far away in such a case where there are RPGs and land mines.

[9mm 0]

A pure chaos down there...

Well, same as in Moscow, killing terrorists is the first priority, saving lives comes in second place.

[Foxtrot87 0]

Civilians are helping Russian forces to find the terrorists.

Quote[/b] ]They are not terrorists defacto ,they took those men in hostage with a political demand: Freedom of Chechnia from Russia.

Sure they're not terrorists, Apollo. If you were taken hostage i'd look at what you'd be saying about them.

There were bastards among Russian soldiers in Chechnya but taking kids as hostages is insanity.

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

Quote[/b] ]Actually from what the hostages are saying is that a few of them blew themselves up at the start, a tad premptive if you ask me along with around 16 people being killed in the act of taking them hostage.

Well they started blowing up when the negotiations failed ,as to put more pressure on Russia probably ,and since Russia wouldn't give in to their demands the explosions were used as a solid justification for them to storm the building.it was not like casualties had fallen on day one ,so if russia would have given in from the start probably no casualties would have fallen.Afcourse the Russians knew they would never give in ,so they were waiting for the one shot or blast to have a public justification to storm the building ,they couldn't storm it withought provocation as then the public oppinion would have been devastatingg for the Russian goverment ,just like it was after the Moskou theatre crises.But the Riussians did know that eventually it had to end like this.

No they started blowing themselves up as soon as this started before anyone knew anything, it's BS that the russians waited for one shot, they have been shot at yesterday with RPG's, if what you say they would have stormed it sooner, Yes casualties had fallen on day one, around 16 were killed in the act of them taking the kids and teachers hostage, it all kicked off when the van came to take the bodies of those who died on the 1st day, as soon as the doors opened the hostages where confused and tried to run for it, the Hostage takers then opened fire, from then on they stormed the building, they then blew the roof.

Seems to me you just have an underlying hate of Russia and anything they do.

[theavonlady 2]

A pure chaos down there...

Not really. Considerring the circumstances, the Russians faired well under miserable conditions:

Quote[/b] ]At Least 7 Dead in Russia School Seige

3 minutes ago

By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer

BESLAN, Russia - At least seven people were killed and 310 others wounded Friday, reports said, after commandos stormed a school in southern Russia where hundreds had been held hostage for three days by Chechen rebels strapped with explosives.

Troops killed five of the hostage-takers but 13 others escaped, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. Troops backed by tanks were pursuing the militants, some of whom were said to be holed up in a house in the area, ITAR-Tass said.

Russian authorities claimed to have control of the school, and the Interfax news agency reported that all the hostages had been evacuated from the school gymnasium. But gunfire continued to ring out some three hours after the commandos' raid.

The scene around the school was chaotic: people running through the streets, columns of smoke overhead, the cries of children and the wounded carried off on stretchers.

Seven people were killed, ITAR-Tass said, and some 310 hostages — most of them children — were wounded, officials from the regional Health Ministry told the news agency. At least four of the dead were children. A nurse spreading sheets on stretchers told The Associated Press that Russian officials expected "very many" wounded.

The commandos stormed the building on the third day of the hostage crisis in Beslan. The raid came after about 30 women and children broke out of the building, some bloodied and screaming.

Interfax said militants fired at children who ran from the building, and unconfirmed reports said some of the hostage-takers, possibly including women bearing suicide belts, may have taken hostages with them.

Women escaping the building were seen fainting and others, some covered in blood, were carried away on stretchers. Many children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building Wednesday.

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.

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 Putin (news - web sites) had said that everything possible would be done to end the "horrible" crisis and save the lives of the children.

Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn 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.

[NKVD 0]

well, here is what I read on some website with most of details (www.newsru.com)

The combat situation came unexpectedly...noone was gonna storm the building..

two incidents made special forces strom the building:

1) when extrem situation workers were getting corpses out (those who died in teh first day of teh siege), apparently terrorists mined the corspe and it went off

2) chaos broke loose inside the school and hostages were getting out by themselves, terrorists started to shoot them so russian commandos had to act and also made a hole in building so hostages could flee faster...

then roof went off...and etc