Over 200 die as school siege ends

[JohnLocke]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=story_4-9-2004_pg1_1&ndate=09/04/2004%205:54:34%20AM">Over 200 die as school siege ends
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Daily Times
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* 700 injured as troops storm building
* More than 10 hostage-takers killed, 4 still at large
* Officials identify 10 hostage-takers as Arabs
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More than 200 people were killed and some 700 were injured on Friday as crack troops stormed a school in southern Russia, freeing children and adults held hostage for almost three days by militants demanding independence for Chechnya.
Scores of screaming, bloodied children, many either naked or wearing nothing but their underwear, fled after an explosion inside the school building forced special forces into an unplanned raid.
The troops exchanged intensive fire with the militants who were believed to be holding as many as 1,200 hostages without food or water, while agonized relations screamed for their loved ones. After hours of chaos and confusion, authorities finally said they had identified the bodies of 79 victims after the siege at the school in North Ossetia, which borders the war-torn republic of Chechnya.
(...)“Unfortunately we have not been able to free all of the hostages yet,” Valery Andreyev said.
(...) More than 100 corpses of hostages were found in the school gymnasium where they had been herded by the rebels demanding independence for Chechnya.
(...)Three hostage-takers who had holed up in the school cellar of a school were later “eliminated”, a correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television said.
Security officials added that 10 of the 20 militants killed in the running gunbattles which lasted into the evening were of Arab descent. “There are 10 people originating from the Arab world among 20 killed terrorists,” Interfax news agency quoted regional FSB security service chief Valery Andreyev as saying. Four captors were still at large while eight were killed and three arrested, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
(...)
Chechen separatist spokesman Akhmed Zakayev said the militants were not Chechens. “The hostage takers were Ingush, Ossetians, Russians, but not Chechens,” said Zakayev, once a spokesman for Chechnya’s separatist president Aslan Maskhadov.
“But of course, their demands have all to do with Chechnya, so whatever has happened, the Chechens will be held responsible. That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said on Britain’s Channel 4 television. agencies.
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Read the rest here.

[slojim240]

1. Was it worth not negotiating with the "terrorists?"

Somebody please convince me. I put myself in the place of the parents of those children killed. Who killed them? Was it the hostage-takers or the storming military? Was is worth it? Will it stop more hostage-taking, more killing, more bombings?

[Radius]

2. Time will

bring out more information.

For now I am just physically sick watching the video from russia.

[rfkrocks]

3. i cannot second guess here

the reports from the moms who survived and some of the children indicated that the killers actually laughed whenthe little kids passed out from no water-the kids were getting ill from lack of water and the heat inside-the woman killers were wired with explosives-whether the Russian forces negioated we will never know (we could have saved many sailors on the Kursk-but they kept that hidden) I just know that this was a horrible act that only brings tears-how can anyone think this action will forward their cause-but then the Nazis loaded children into gas chambers

[Radius]

4. It gets worse

snip>
When children fainted from lack of sleep, food and water, their masked and camouflaged captors simply sneered, she said, adding that adults implored children to drink their own urine in the intolerable heat of the gym.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040903/D84SFJS01.html

*this links to an article with disturbing pictures.

I have no sympathy for the killers, none. After reading this I feel worse for a bug that hits my windshield than them.

No cause, nothing justafies this.

Russia has millitary and Industrial targets, they CHOOSE children.

[slojim240]

5. Russian genocide against Chechens

I don't know a lot about this history but before we say "nothing justifies" certain actions we should at least look at all the information. I'm not saying this school incident wasn't horrible but Americans never seem to have the total history of anything and we even forget much of our own recent history.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EC0261BF-9B81-47EC-B455-5C955F01AC45.htm

[bemildred]

6. Justice has nothing to do with it.

This was revenge. This was hate.

[Moderator]

7. Duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=800502