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Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004

The attack was the latest violence blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels, coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people in the capital and a week after near-simultaneous explosions caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board.

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  President Vladimir Putin interrupted his working holiday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and returned to Moscow. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia's Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.

The school seizure began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children to the facility which covers grades 1-11. The attackers forced children to stand at the windows and warned they would blow up the school if police tried to storm it, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that hostage-takers released 15 children, but Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told The Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building's boiler room. He said no hostages were released.

Gunfire broke out after the raid and at least two people were killed, including a father who had brought his child to the school and was shot trying to resist the attackers, said Fatima Khabolova, a spokeswoman for the regional parliament. She said most of the attackers were wearing suicide belts.

An attacker also was killed, and nine people were injured, including three teachers and two police officers, Polyansky said. More gunfire and several explosions were heard about three hours later, the Interfax news agency reported.

Suspicion in the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. "In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

The latest violence also appears to be timed around last Sunday's presidential elections in Chechnya, a Kremlin-backed move aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed along with more than 20 others in a bombing on May 9.

The school attackers demanded talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.

The hostage-takers also demanded the release of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia in June, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing regional officials. Those well-coordinated raids killed more than 90 people.

Regional emergency officials said about 400 people including some 200 children were being held captive, ITAR-Tass reported. A regional police official said the hostages had been herded into the school gymnasium.

There were 17 attackers, male and female, Interfax said, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service.

In television footage from outside the school in Beslan, a town about 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz, men in camouflage with heavy-caliber machine guns took up positions on the perimeter and other men in civilian dress with light automatic rifles paced nervously.

At one point, a girl in a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair ran around a corner apparently after fleeing from the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier, followed by an older woman. Russian news reports said about 50 students managed to escape, some after hiding in the school's boiler room during the raid.

"I was standing near the gate. Music was playing when I saw three armed people running with guns. At first I though it was a joke, when they fired in the air and we fled," a teen-age witness, Zarubek Tsumartov, said on Russian television.

The attack was the latest in a string of violence that has tormented Russians and plagued the government of Putin, who came to power in 2000 vowing to crush the Chechen rebels.

Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly after the plane crashes and the bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing 10 people and wounded more than 50.

A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming blame for the bombing on behalf of "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed blame for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.

The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

Several female bombers allegedly connected with the rebels have caused carnage in Moscow and other Russian cities in a series of attacks in recent years.

Many of the bombers are believed to be so-called "black widows," who have lost husbands or male relatives in the fighting that has gripped Chechnya for most of the past decade. Investigators of the plane crashes are seeking information about two Chechen women believed to have been aboard, one on each plane.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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