Beslan school suspects killed in Russian raid

Russian authorities have killed five people suspected of aiding September’s school hostage-taking in southern Russia and arrested four other suspects, prosecutors said today.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement that the arrested men were suspected of helping stage the hostage-taking in Beslan where assailants held more than 1,000 hostages for nearly three days before the siege ended on September 3 in gunfire and explosions that killed 330 people, nearly half of them children.