Russian School Attackers Threaten to Kill Children
By Jonathan Thatcher
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A heavily armed gang seized up to 400 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya Wednesday and threatened to kill 50 children for each of their group who was killed, a senior local official said.
The attack bore the signs of a Chechen rebel operation. The gang of up to 17 men and women stormed into the secondary school in Beslan in North Ossetia province during a ceremony to mark the first day of the new school year.
"They have said that for every fighter wiped out they will kill 50 children and for every fighter wounded -- 20," regional Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev told reporters in Beslan.
The gang, some strapped with explosives and reported to have mined the school grounds, later set free 15 of the children, Itar-Tass news agency said.
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