R.J. Parker - The Serial Killer Compendium

- Murat Ziazikov, President of Ingushetia,

- Alu Alkhanov, President of Chechnya

- Aslambek Aslakhanov, or Mukharbek Aushev

- Vladimir Rushailo, Executive Secretary for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Crisis – Day 1

Every year in every school in the Russian Federation, on the first day of September, citizens celebrate a holiday known as the "Day of Knowledge" at school. The children are commonly accompanied by their parents and other family members dressed in their finest clothes. After listening to introductions and speeches from the staff and students, the ‘First Graders’ give a flower to the ‘Last Graders.’ The Last Graders then take the First Graders to their first class. In 2004, on September 1 at School Number One in Beslan, this tradition was deliberately used by terrorists as an opportunity to seize the school and take hostages. The result was hundreds of children and entire families wounded or killed.

At about 9:40 a.m., a group of thirty-two men and women stormed Beslan's Middle School Number One, whose pupils ranged from seven to eighteen years old. Most of the attackers wore black ski masks and a few were seen carrying explosive belts. After an exchange of gunfire with police in which five officers and one perpetrator were killed, the attackers seized the school building, taking more than 1,300 hostages.

This number was confirmed by teachers later. Many hostages were schoolchildren under the age of eighteen. There were also many parents and staff inside. About fifty people managed to flee to safety in the initial attack and alert authorities. Repeated shooting was later heard coming from the school buildings, thought by some to be for the intimidation of security forces. It was later revealed that the attackers had killed twenty adult- male hostages and had thrown their bodies out of the building. The attackers were also outraged by the authorities undercounting the number of hostages.

The attackers moved the hostages to the school gymnasium on the first day, mined the gym and the rest of the building with improvised explosive devices, and surrounded it with tripwires. In a further bid to deter rescue attempts, they threatened to kill fifty hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and twenty hostages for every gunman injured.

They also threatened to blow up the school should government forces attack. The Russian government initially said that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations towards a peaceful resolution did take place on the first and second days, led by Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician for whom the hostage-takers had reportedly asked for by name. Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege.

At Russia's request, a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council was convened on the evening of September 1. The council members demanded "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of the terrorist attack." U.S. President George W. Bush reportedly offered "support in any form" to Russia in dealing with the crisis.

Day 2

On September 2, 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the hostage-takers proved unsuccessful, and they refused to accept food, water, and medicines for the hostages, or even for the bodies of the dead to be removed from the school. Many hostages, especially children, took off their shirts and other articles of clothing because of the sweltering heat, which led to rumors of sexual assault, though the hostages later explained it was merely to keep cool.

In the afternoon, following their negotiations with former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, the gunmen agreed to release twenty-six nursing women and their infants. One infant was handed to Aushev as its mother refused to leave the school while her other children remained inside. At around 3:30 p.m., two explosions occurred at the school, approximately ten minutes apart from one another. These were later revealed to be the explosions of rocket-propelled grenades, fired by the hostage-takers in an apparent attempt to keep the security forces well away from the school.

Day 3

On the afternoon of September 3, 2004, the hostage-takers agreed to allow medical workers to remove bodies from the school grounds. The removal team, reportedly consisting of FSB (Federal Security Service, formerly known as the KGB) officers, began to approach the school at 1:04 p.m., but the hostage-takers opened fire, and two large explosions were heard.

Two of the medical workers died; the rest fled under a hail of gunfire. Part of the gymnasium also collapsed, allowing a group of about thirty hostages to escape, but they were fired on by the gunmen, and then caught in a crossfire as the Russian army and armed civilians tried to fire at the terrorists. Many of the escapees were killed. Ruslan Aushev, the negotiator during the siege, told the Novaya Gazeta that the initial explosion was set off by a hostage-taker accidentally tripping over a wire. As a result, armed civilians, some of them apparently fathers of the hostages, started shooting.

Reportedly, no security forces or hostage-takers were shooting at this point, but the gunfire led the hostage-takers to believe that the school was being stormed. In response, they set off their bombs.

It was at this point that Russian Special Forces activated their action plan to storm the school to rescue any possible survivors. A disorganized battle broke out as the Special Forces sought to enter the school and cover the escape of the hostages. Some panicking Russian army recruits fled the scene while the Special Forces commandos blew holes in walls to allow hostages to escape. A massive level of force was used. The special forces, regular army, and Interior Ministry troops were all involved, as were helicopter gunships and at least one tank. Many local civilians also joined in the battle, having brought along their own weapons.

Afterwards, the Russian government defended the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry, arguing that it was used after surviving hostages escaped from the school; however, this contradicts eyewitness accounts and common sense, as many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves.

The attack was followed by large explosions of other detonating bombs and several Shmel fuel-air explosive rockets used by the government forces, which destroyed the gym and set much of the building on fire. By 3:00 p.m., two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. Fighting, however, continued as evening fell, and three gunmen held up in the basement with a number of hostages. They, and the hostages they were holding, were eventually killed.

During the battle, a group of hostage-takers, approximately thirteen of them, broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Two of those thirteen were reportedly women who allegedly attempted to blend into the crowd and escape disguised as medical personnel. The military cordon had been compromised as they’d permitted the passage of hostage’s relatives, dressed in civilian clothing and, in some cases, bearing firearms.

A few of the escapees were said to be cornered in a residential two-story house within 120 feet of the gym. Whether or not they had hostages was unknown. The house was destroyed using tanks and flamethrowers by 11:00 p.m., on September the third.

In the aftermath, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Fridinsky believed that thirty-one of the thirty-two attackers had been confirmed dead, and one had been captured. One suspected hostage-taker was beaten to death by the fathers of hostages when he was injured and being driven to the hospital. Another suspected terrorist was assassinated on the scene, an event filmed by the Sky News crew.