Russia’s school siege terror

SUICIDE attackers who seized a packed school in Russia’s troubled Caucuses region yesterday have threatened to kill 50 children for every gunman “destroyed”.

The 17 gunmen and women - wearing suicide bomb belts - were holding more than 400 hostages, including 200 children in the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, bordering Chechnya.

Suspicion immediately fell on Chechan separatists who have been battling the Russian army for more than a decade for an independent nation.

Last night, negotiators made contact with the gunmen but a long standoff was expected.

Officials said at least two people were killed but the ITAR-Tass news agency put the death toll at eight.

Two dead people were visible and one girl lay wounded on the grounds near the school, but emergency workers could not approach because the area was coming under fire. In a tense standoff, the militants placed a sniper on an upper floor of the building.

The school seizure began after a ceremony marking the first day of Russia’s school year, a big event in which students, often with parents, arrive at school carrying flowers for new teachers. Most of the children taken hostage were under 14 years old.

The majority of hostages were herded into the school gym, but others - primarily children - were ordered to stand at the windows.

The attackers warned they would blow up the building if the police tried to storm it. At least 12 children and one adult managed to escape.

“I was standing near the gates, music was playing when I saw three armed people running with guns, at first I thought it was a joke, when they fired in the air and we fled,” said one teenage witness.

TV networks ran footage of a girl in a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair running around a corner after fleeing from the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier, followed by an older woman.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cut short a Black Sea holiday with security officials.

The hostage-taking came less than 24 hours after a suicide bomber detonated her explosives outside a Moscow subway station, killing at least nine people, and just over a week after near simultaneous explosions caused two Russian planes to crash, killing 90.

A government spokesman said hostage-takers threatened “for every destroyed fighter, they will kill 50 children and for every injured fighter - 20 (children)”. Parents of the seized children recorded a video appeal to Mr Putin to fulfil the demands.