School siege terror caught on camera

TERROR in the face of a child has a poignancy which no words can convey.

This young boy's expression of sheer dread is a heart-breaking illustration of what a horrified world imagined was taking place in the first moments of the Beslan School No 1 nightmare.

The hostage takers arrogantly pose with weapons they would later use to slaughter the children and their mothers and fathers.

A basketball net used as a booby-trap bomb holder shows just how determined the terrorists were to inflict maximum damage.

A cold bloodedness in the eyes of the female terrorist is an upsetting contrast to the expressions of anguish, sadness and unbridled terror in the faces of the terrorists' prey.

Red streaks on the floor seemed to be blood, as if a victim had been dragged across the wooden surface.

Last night, a Russian television network showed footage from the school depicting hooded attackers in a gymnasium rigged with explosives and full of hostages men, women and children.

The footage, which NTV television said was recorded by the assailants, showed what appeared to be hundreds of hostages crowded into the cramped hall fanning themselves in the heat.

Football-sized bundles of explosives were attached to wires and strings hanging from a basketball hoop and other objects.

One attacker in a black hood stood with his boot on what NTV said was a book rigged with a pressure detonator.

In the video, one attacker amid the crowd of hostages is seen fiddling with wires attached to what appeared to a bomb the size and shape of a small suitcase.

At one point, a voice in Russian, apparently an attacker, said: "Wait, don't bring the children in here."

The tape was probably recorded on the first day of the crisis at School No 1.

At the end of the brief footage, a voice is heard speaking quietly into a phone in a language that doesn't sound like Russian.

The bloody finale of the three-day crisis saw the deaths of more than 350, including the hostage-takers, many killed by the bombs in the gymnasium.

Yesterday, schools throughout Ireland observed one minute's silence at noon for the dead of Beslan.

Tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated against terrorism, massing outside the Kremlin yesterday in response to government calls for solidarity after a series of deadly attacks that have killed more than 400.

The demonstration came as relatives held a third day of funerals for victims of the hostage crisis at the school.

Demonstrators massed under intermittent rain on Red Square's cobblestones outside St Basil's Cathedral brandishing banners with slogans such as Russia against terror, We won't give Russia to terrorists and The enemy will be crushed, victory will be ours.