Gunmen Take Over 200 Hostages in North Ossetia School
Gunmen Take Over 200 Hostages in North Ossetia School
We've seen it happen back there in Dubrovka theatre.
Now we're living through all of it again.
The terrorists — detestable, unhuman creatures, may God strike them down, but there is one thing we know for sure. They didn't come for the money, like their Palestinian colleagues in the 1970s and the 1980s. They didn't come there to negotiate a Russian pullout from Chechnya, since they've got no one to talk to on this subject. They came there to die, and die they will, it's only a matter of hours. And they know it, and they are prepared to it, as were their predecessors in the Nord-Ost showdown.
The very point of Dubrovka hostage-taking in October 2002 was to provoke a mass tragedy in the middle of Moscow, without actually killing anyone in the process. They had all the time in the world to blow up the building (gas was pumped at least for a couple of hours before the storming), but they did not press the button. Because they wanted Russian troops to do the job. But Russian troops only killed 129 people, instead of 900, and this was sold to the general audience as a brilliant victory, a triumphant rescue effort, given the alternatives.
Now, the North Ossetia school attackers are taking no chances in Beslan. They planted bombs in the schoolyard, reducing, inter alia, their own chances of escape. They seriously expect everybody within that school building to die, when troops begin storming it. Authorities seem to be aware of this plot, so suddenly there are some efforts at negotiations. Unfortunately, it's difficult to see what's there to negotiate after all. And siloviki would rather sacrifice all children of both North and South Ossetia, than concede such a defeat five years into the latest Chechnya campaign, as pulling any troops out. Unless we're overlooking something here, storming is quite inevitable. And it's better not to think about its possible outcome, given the terrorists' determination to die for their cause.
We've seen it happen back there in Dubrovka theatre.
Now we're living through all of it again.
The terrorists — detestable, unhuman creatures, may God strike them down, but there is one thing we know for sure. They didn't come for the money, like their Palestinian colleagues in the 1970s and the 1980s. They didn't come there to negotiate a Russian pullout from Chechnya, since they've got no one to talk to on this subject. They came there to die, and die they will, it's only a matter of hours. And they know it, and they are prepared to it, as were their predecessors in the Nord-Ost showdown.
The very point of Dubrovka hostage-taking in October 2002 was to provoke a mass tragedy in the middle of Moscow, without actually killing anyone in the process. They had all the time in the world to blow up the building (gas was pumped at least for a couple of hours before the storming), but they did not press the button. Because they wanted Russian troops to do the job. But Russian troops only killed 129 people, instead of 900, and this was sold to the general audience as a brilliant victory, a triumphant rescue effort, given the alternatives.
Now, the North Ossetia school attackers are taking no chances in Beslan. They planted bombs in the schoolyard, reducing, inter alia, their own chances of escape. They seriously expect everybody within that school building to die, when troops begin storming it. Authorities seem to be aware of this plot, so suddenly there are some efforts at negotiations. Unfortunately, it's difficult to see what's there to negotiate after all. And siloviki would rather sacrifice all children of both North and South Ossetia, than concede such a defeat five years into the latest Chechnya campaign, as pulling any troops out. Unless we're overlooking something here, storming is quite inevitable. And it's better not to think about its possible outcome, given the terrorists' determination to die for their cause.
posted by dolboeb at 5:37 PM
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