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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Beslan gunman gives account of explosions

2005-06-02

The explosions that sparked the bloody end to last September's school hostage seizure in Beslan were touched off when sharpshooters killed two militants holding triggers to homemade bombs, a suspect being tried for the massacre has testified. The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Nur-Pashi Kulayev as saying the leader of the 32 heavily armed militants - whom he called "Colonel" - entered the packed gymnasium where more than 1100 hostages were held after the bombs detonated and smashed his cellphone. "He said: 'They won't take pity on anyone; we fight to the last cartridge'," Kulayev was quoted as saying as he recounted the last words of the Colonel, who was killed at the school. Kulayev's testimony provides new insights into the September 1 to 3 raid on Beslan's School No 1. Of the schoolchildren, relatives and teachers held hostage, more than 330 died during the fierce gunbattle and explosions that Russian security agencies said were caused by the terrorists. More than half of the dead were children. Kulayev was the only militant known to have survived. Kulayev, whose trial at the North Ossetian Supreme Court in May, has pleaded innocent to charges including terrorism, murder and attacking law enforcement officers. If convicted, he could get up to life in prison, though survivors and others have called for the death penalty. Video footage shot by the militants has corroborated witnesses' accounts of how the militants strung homemade explosives from the ceiling and the basketball hoops in the school's gymnasium. Some witnesses said the terrorists had rigged up triggers that would set off the bombs if a person's foot was lifted from them. Kulayev told the court of some of the arguments that broke out among the hostage-takers. Some apparently objected to taking children hostage, and several wanted to seize the nearby police station. "The children and women were captured and forced into the school building. Then the militants started shouting: 'The police station is nearby, let's seize it, why seize the school?'," Kulayev was quoted as saying. Two of the militants were female suicide bombers who openly disagreed with the Colonel about the child hostages and were killed when he detonated their bombs by remote control, Kulayev testified. Kulayev was quoted as saying that he spent the entire time in the school's cafeteria, armed with an assault rifle, which he said he never fired. He also said a police officer rode in the cabin of the truck that carried the militants to the school, and that was how they were able to enter Beslan so easily. He said the officer disappeared after the raid began.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russian commando sez 52 hard boyz involved in Beslan

2004-11-04

While the authorities claim a school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan was seized by a group of 32 rebels, the survivors of the hostage drama and other witnesses insist that in actual fact the number of hostage-takers was higher. As many as 49 rebels, not 32, were killed during the storming, 3 were taken alive and arrested and at least 13 fled, a man who introduced himself as Vassily K. told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. Vassily described himself as a serviceman from a special purpose commando unit in the Southern Federal District who took part in the operation to free the hostages. According to official reports, the school was seized by 32 militants. The only rebel arrested was Nur-Pashi Kulayev, Vladimir Ustinov, Russia's top prosecutor said earlier. Ustinov said he strongly doubted that any of the hostage-takers had managed to flee. However, hostages who survived the siege told the press that most of the terrorists wore civilian clothes and clearly hoped that they would be able to merge with the crowd and escape. It is quite likely that some of them succeeded. Former hostages told a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent in Beslan that at least four more rebels took part in the siege. Their identities were never established. "There were not 32 rebels, as official reports say, but much more," says Vassily K. The fighter asked not to reveal his real name, although he gave it to the daily. Vassily said he took part in the storming of School No.1 in Beslan on Sept. 3. "I counted 52 rebels, of which 49 were killed and 3 arrested. Apart from them, there were 13 other people, including a female suicide bomber. They managed to flee. Among those captured alive was not only Nur-Pasha Kulayev, as officially reported, but also Vladimir Khodov and a female bomber."

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Weapons found in Beslan traced to Ingush raids

2004-09-17

Some of the weapons used by militants in the deadly Russian school siege were pilfered from police posts in armed raids led by one of Chechnya's most notorious warlords, Russia's chief prosecutor said in an interview published yesterday. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov's comments in the newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta, which is supported by the Kremlin, suggested further evidence that the hostage-taking at School No. 1 in Beslan may have been organized by Shamil Basayev, one of Russia's most-wanted fugitives. The only suspected militant captured alive by Russian forces - a man identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev - said earlier in footage broadcast on Russian television that they were carrying out an assignment from Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, a former president of Chechnya. The separatist Maskhadov has denied involvement in the attack. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't me. I'm moderate as the day is long!" Ustinov told the newspaper that authorities seized seven Kalashnikov rifles and three pistols from the militants that were stolen during coordinated June attacks in Ingushetia, which borders war-ravaged Chechnya and North Ossetia. Hundreds of fighters raided the police posts in an overnight attack, killing 88 people. A video on a pro-rebel Web site the next month showed Basayev and about 10 other camouflage-clad men pulling weapons and ammunition boxes off shelves in a building. On the video, Basayev identified the building as an Interior Ministry arsenal in Ingushetia. In Beslan, investigators have pursued leads that Basayev was the mastermind behind the Sept. 1 school attack, in which 32 heavily armed militants seized the school and more than 1,200 people with relative ease.

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Caucasus

Beslan links to Basayev

2004-09-06

Gisted from the Russian... Details from the interrogation of the terrorist taken alive by SpetsNaz in the wake of the attack on the school in Beslan, from Monday's edition of Gazeta.Ru: At least four of the attackers are from Stari Engenoi in Nozhai Yurt region of Chechnya. Among them is the surviving member, 24-year-old Nur-Pasha Kulayev, who was previously misidentified as Kulov. The group also included Kulayev's elder brother, 31-year-old Khan-Pasha Kulayev, who was killed on September 3rd. The two other terrorists from the same town were Arsen Merzhoev and Mairbek Shibikhanov. The Kulyaev brother were reported to be bodyguards to Shamil Basayev. The Kulyaevs were also connected with Rustamom Ganiyev, who was captured last year, and was responsible for recruiting killers to take part in terror acts in Russia proper. Two of Ganiyev's sisters were killed in the Nord Ost Theater incident in Dubrovka. Another of the liquidated terrorists was identified as Anatoly Khodov, alias Abdullah, from the Ruslan Gelyaev group. He was involved in the 3 February 2004 bombing in Vladikavkaz. He was also involved in the 15 May attack on the Moscow-Vladikavkaz train. The chief of the bandits was reported to be Magomed Yevloyev. His body has not been found. According to Vremya Novostei, among the dead gunmen was Magomed Aushev and a certain Umarov. However, this is not believed to be the field commander, Doku Umarov, who was reported to have organized the operation in the Beslan school. The bodies of seven gunnies did not have identification. Among them is one woman, who killed herself with a suicide belt.

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