"Jean Guernon" <jguernon@globetrotter.net> wrote in message
news:DSz_c.94655$A8.43011@edtnps89...

Dr. Blunt a écrit:

"Jean Guernon" <jguernon@globetrotter.net> wrote in message
news:C2u_c.93112$A8.31864@edtnps89...

AlQaeda, AGAIN.

J.

dreamwalker a écrit:

I like the part about taking up arms.




By Mike Eckel
Associated Press Writer

BESLAN, Russia (AP) - A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare

and

candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an

"all-out

war" by terrorists after more than 340 people - nearly half of them
children - were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.

Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize
against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen

security

forces and purge corruption.

"We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said in a speech
aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a
string of attacks that have killed some 450 people in the past two
weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.

Shocked relatives wandered among row after row of bodies lined up in
black or clear plastic body bags on the pavement at a morgue in
Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, where the dead from the
school standoff in the town of Beslan were taken. In some open bags

lay

the contorted, thin bodies of children, some monstrously charred.

In Beslan, people scoured lists of names to see if their loved ones
survived the chaos of the day before, when the standoff turned

violent

Friday as militants set off explosives in the school and commandos

moved

in to seize the building.

Beslan residents were allowed to enter the burned-out husk that was

once

the gymnasium of School No. 1, where more than 1,000 hostages were

held

during the 62-hour ordeal that started Wednesday. The gym's roof was
destroyed, windows shattered, walls pocked with bullet holes.

Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said 323 people,
including 156 children, were killed. More than 540 people were

wounded -

mostly children. Medical officials said 448 people, including 248
children, remained hospitalized Saturday evening.

Dzgoyev also said 35 attackers - heavily-armed and explosive-laden

men

and women reportedly demanding independence for the Chechen

republic -

were killed in 10 hours of battles that shook the area around the

school

with gunfire and explosions.

Putin made a quick visit to the town before dawn Saturday, meeting

local

officials and touring a hospital to speak with wounded. He stopped to
stroke the head of an injured child.

But some in the region were unimpressed, as grief turned to anger,

both

at the militants and the government response.

Marat Avsarayev, a 44-year-old taxi driver in Vladikavkaz, questioned
why Putin and other politicians didn't "even think about fulfilling

the

(militants') demands to save the lives of the children. Probably

because

it wasn't their children here."

During his visit to Beslan, Putin stressed that security officials

had

not planned to storm the school - trying to fend off potential

criticism

that the government side provoked the bloodshed. He ordered the

region's

borders closed while officials searched for anyone connected to the

attack.

"What happened was a terrorist act that was inhuman and unprecedented

in

its cruelty," Putin said in his televised speech later. "It is a
challenge not to the president, the parliament and the government but

a

challenge to all of Russia, to all of our people. It is an attack on

our

nation."

Including the school disaster, more than 450 people have been killed

in

the past two weeks in violence. Two planes crashed nearly

simultaneously

on Aug. 24, killing 90 people, and a suicide bomber killed eight

people

in Moscow on Tuesday. Chechen separatists are suspected in both

attacks.

Putin took a defiant tone, acknowledging Russia's weaknesses but

blaming

it on the fall of the Soviet Union, foreign foes seeking to tear

apart

Russia and on corrupt officials. He said Russians could no longer

live

"carefree" and must all confront terrorism.

Measures would be taken, Putin promised, to overhaul the law

enforcement

organs, which he acknowledged had been infected by corruption, and
tighten borders.

"We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and

to

demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate

to

the level and scale of the new threats," he said.

An unidentified intelligence official was quoted by the ITAR-Tass

news

agency as saying the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf,

an

Arab who allegedly represents al-Qaida in Chechnya, and masterminded

by

Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev.

Also, the Federal Security Service chief in North Ossetia, Valery
Andreyev, said Saturday that investigators were looking into whether
militants had smuggled explosives and weapons into the school and hid
them during a renovation this summer.

It was still unclear exactly how the standoff fell apart into

bloodshed

at 1 p.m. on Friday. Officials say security forces were forced to act
when hostage-takers set off explosives. But some questioned that

version.

The militants seized the school on the first day of classes

Wednesday,

herding hundreds of children, parents who had been dropping their

kids

off, and other adults into the gymnasium, which the militants

promptly

wired with explosives - including bombs hanging from the basketball
hoops. The packed gym became sweltering, and the hostage-takers

refused

to allow in food or water.

One survivor, Sima Albegova, told the Kommersant newspaper she asked

the

militants why the captives were taken. "Because you vote for your
Putin," one militant told her, she said.

Another freed hostage said a militant told her, "If Putin doesn't
withdraw forces from Chechnya and doesn't free our arrested brothers,
we'll blow everything up," according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets
newspaper.

Russian officials said the violence began when explosions were
apparently set off by the militants - possibly by accident - as
emergency workers entered the school courtyard to collect the bodies

of

hostages killed in the initial raid Wednesday.

Diana Gadzhinova, 14, said the militants ordered her and other

hostages

to lie face down in the gymnasium as the bodies were collected.

"They told us that there were going to be talks," she was quoted as
telling Iszvestia. Others also told of how militants appeared to be
confused and surprised at the initial explosions.

Hostages fled during the blasts, and the militants shot at them,
prompting security forces to open fire and commandos to move in,
officials said.

The explosions tore through the roof of the gymnasium, sending

wreckage

down on hostages and killing many. Many survivors emerged naked,

covered

in ashes and soot, their feet bloody from jumping barefoot out of

broken

windows to escape.

With families gathering for wakes for the dead Saturday, some were
vowing vengeance.

"Fathers will bury their children, and after 40 days (the Orthodox
mourning period) ... they will take up weapons and seek revenge,"

said

Alan Kargiyev, a 20-year-old university student in Vladikavkaz.

Questions come to mind:

1) As reported by AP, the explosions "possibly" were accidentally set

off

as Russian forces moved in. Witnesses report that the militants appear
shocked or surprised when the bombs went off.

Nope.

Okay, it wasn't when the Russian troops went in, it was when the emergency
workers went in to collect bodies. And, yes, it is reported above that
"possibly" the bombs went off accidentally. Small difference. So, we're
not sure that the terrorists set off the bombs. We need an international
body to independently investigate this incident, since Russia's Putin has
much to gain politically by exploiting it. Considering the long, bitter
history of the conflict, an outside impartial study, probably by the UN or
under its auspices, needs to ferret out the facts. If you want to believe
former KGB head, Putin, that's your shortcoming, not mine. You want truth,
then stop jumping to conclusions drawn on media reports and a potentially
biased government's pronouncements. If some incomplete news reports, for
popular consumption, are going to be the way you judge people, and the
incidents, then you're not for justice or fairness at all.

2) With 1,000 children involved, it's enigmatic that negotiations were

cut

off so soon after they had begun. If American SWAT teams had rushed

into

Columbine so soon, many more kids would likely have been killed in the
cross-fire and chaos.

Nope.

How would you KNOW? Do you think SWAT teams would've used heavy fire with
so many kids around? We don't know all the details of the chase through
the surrounding neighborhood, or what happened in the school, or exactly
made up the group of militants.
But, you go ahead and believe the news reports and Putin's government, or
the Russian police, etc., and draw your firm conclusions...as if you were
right there experiencing it all yourself.

3) Just how many kids died from Russian fire is something that

forensics

should be revealing at a future point, as well as more witnesses'

details.

The Chechens and the Arabs with them killed them and are totally and
solely responsible.

We don't know that. An investigation is needed. If you know something that
hasn't been popularly reported, then spit it out here. We can go back and
forth, surmising what happened. It's futile, and it's unfair. Maybe you
should look at the investigation into the Russians' attacks on Grozny. You
might learn something.

4) None of these news stories point out that the Russians have been
accused of unnecessarily slaughtering large numbers of civilians in

past

clashes. 100,000 died in Grozny alone after heaving artillery and

aerial

bombardment. Most were civilians, and that included many children. The
Intl. Red Cross confirmed the unusually high number of civlian

casualties.

Well, they started a conventional war with Russia which had to defend
itself. They surely didn't obey the Geneva convention and kept the
fighting outside the civilian enclave, THEY ARE MUSLIMS! True, Russians
were not as sophisticated then as the Americans have been in their wars,
despite the lies you believe, and just uttered, as to their (American)
efficiency.

Funny irony here is, is that if this had been the Cold War period, and
something like this would've happened, you'd be spewing out suspicion like
hell at the Communist Russians. hee, hee, hee...

5) Only an independent international investigatory body could fairly
determine whether some or all of the militants were Al Qaida members.

A

few mainstream news stories and political remarks doesn't suffice for

an

impartial investigation.

Bah, there is no reason to distort the truth. There were surely nine or
ten Arabs there. ANd they were certainly AlQaeda, the operation was
financed by AlQaeda.

If you know of evidence the rest of us don't, then you'd better phone
Putin. ROFL...

As usual, the are other sides to a story, and a history behind it.

And, as

usual, biased readers are quick to believe what they want.
Dr. Blunt

Yes, there are two sides, your side of the terrorists ***** kissing
propaganda lies, and the truth.

J.

And your warped, biased version of what you call the "truth."
Dr. Blunt