Man, this is really horrific!
===============================================================================
www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/03/russia.school/index.htmlReport: More than 200 dead after troops storm school
Three militants reportedly being interrogated
Friday, September 3, 2004 Posted: 6:16 PM EDT (2216 GMT)
A man carries an injured schoolgirl from the scene.
BESLAN, Russia (CNN) -- The operation to end the school hostage crisis in Russia is over, an emergency official said late Friday, but more than 200 people have died.
The Interfax news agency, quoting Russian health officials, reported the death toll.
As rain fell late Friday, soldiers began deactivating explosives that had been placed in the school. No gunfire was heard, but there were large explosions in the evening that appeared to be part of the de-mining operation.
Reports said as many as 1,200 hostages might have been inside the school and that 70 percent of them were children. Earlier reports had placed the number of hostages at a few hundred.
A news report said three hostage-takers have been arrested and are being interrogated. Several are believed to have escaped in the chaos of the assault.
Valery Andreyev, head of the local branch of the FSB intelligence service, said 20 hostage-takers had been killed, 10 of them from Arab countries, after Russian troops stormed the school earlier Friday. (Map of school)
Until now, the rebels were all thought to have been residents of the restive Republic of Chechnya or other parts of the Russian Caucasus.
One witness told a reporter that a hostage-taker had set off a suicide bomb in a gymnasium full of children.
Near the scene, news footage showed bodies of children on stretchers.
One woman leaned down to a young boy, hugging and caressing the youth, who shared a stretcher with a body. Other women stood, holding their hands to their mouths and weeping.
Andreyev said 400 people had been freed as commandos stormed the school, with many of the hostages wounded.
The standoff began Wednesday morning when armed militants took hundreds of children, parents and teachers hostage on the first day of school in Beslan, located in North Ossetia, near Chechnya, where rebels have been fighting Russia and demanding independence for the Muslim-majority republic.
Raid wasn't planned
An FSB official told Russian media that troops had been ready for a long siege.
However, the forces stormed the building around midday after Russian officials, under a cease-fire agreement with militants, tried to collect bodies lying outside the building.
There was an explosion, scores of hostages fled, and hostage-takers opened fire on the children and rescue workers. One of the workers was killed and another was wounded.
Russian troops then opened fire at the rebels, and the battle began.
Russian forces blasted holes in a building of the school to create passages through which hostages could escape and soldiers could enter.
During the assault, a Russian soldier and a news cameraman were wounded by gunfire.
Interfax quoted a Defense official as saying that "the terrorists planted a lot of mines and booby-traps filled with metal bolts in the gym" where hostages were held.
Children who survived said they were denied food and water and had to take off their clothes because of the heat. Some boys said that because they had no water, they had to drink their own urine.
The standoff followed a bloody week in Russia, in which a female suicide bomber killed nine people outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday and two airliners were downed by two suspected Chechen female suicide bombers on August 24, killing all 89 on board.
Russian officials have said the new wave of attacks is an attempt at revenge for last weekend's elections in Chechnya, in which a Kremlin-backed candidate won the presidency.
© 2004 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.