They Are Killing Us All

Sunday, Sep. 05, 2004 By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE/BESLAN

A child is carried to safety amid the carnage that left more than 320 people dead at a school in the Russian town of Beslan, Friday, as a hostage crisis ended in a six-hour battle

YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME

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Despite Putin's pledge not to storm the school, special forces and other crack troops came pouring into the surrounding area. To avoid being overwhelmed by narcotic gas like their comrades had been in the October 2002 Moscow theater siege — in which 41 terrorists and 129 hostages died — the rebels quickly smashed the school's windows. After reviewing the situation, an officer from the secretive Alpha antiterrorist unit told a senior Beslan legal figure that the Moscow theater siege "was a kindergarten compared to this."

The rebels were furious that Putin would not negotiate with them. "No one will have a single mouthful of water until he contacts us," the Chechen leader announced. Finally, he allowed a bucket of water to be brought in. People dunked boys' white shirts and girls' pinafores into the bucket and passed the wet clothes down the rows so each hostage could squeeze and suck a little water out of them. But the children would not stay quiet as ordered. The fighters stood a male hostage against a wall. "If you don't shut up, we'll kill him. After that, we will kill a woman, then a child." The terrorists rejected offers of safe passage, of swapping children for adult hostages and even of food and water, fearing they could be drugged or the delivery could provide cover for an attack. Twenty-six women with babies were allowed to leave; at least one had to choose which child she would leave behind.

On Friday morning, a deal was struck for members of the rescue service to remove some corpses from the gym. Dressed in red-and blue-striped coveralls, with the initials of the search-and-rescue service prominently displayed on their backs, six officers approached the entrance. The men weren't wearing bulletproof vests or carrying guns as they arrived in front of the school to pick up the bodies at 1:05 p.m. That's when two great explosions ripped the air and the final battle began. The security forces appeared unprepared for the chaos, implying that the government had not abandoned its commitment to negotiate. But something had gone awry.

The government said that Russian forces killed 26 captors but that some of the terrorists may have escaped. Putin appeared on television and pledged to mobilize the nation against the "total, brutal and full-scale war" being waged on Russia. For the children of Beslan, it has already arrived.