A FINAL REPORT ON THE SITUATION HERE IN BESLAN... BEFORE I COME HOME

First, I want to urge you to read my good friend Congressman Tom Tancredo's blog on his trip to Beslan. He echos many of my own emotions as he visited Beslan victims in hospitals in Moscow, and later visited briefly the Beslan school.

Click HERE to read his blog.

Many have requested a more through report on the situation here, and the chronology of what happened at the Beslan School. I will try to lay out, as accurately as I can, my understanding of what happened and why, based upon many sources. These sources include European and Russian news reports, personal interviews with survivors, and reports I've received from what I believe to be reliable witnesses.

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Some of the information contained in this report is graphic. I hope you read it anyway. You need to know what happened here. I'm just warning you ahead of time because I don't want to waste time answering "offended" readers. It is not my intention to offend or gross-out people. Reality is sometimes a rough playground, but I'm convinced that we need to come out of "La-La land" and boldly stare down the evil that is facing our world. Like it or not, we are called as soldiers in an epic battle between light and darkness. Let's get busy!

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE REGIONAL CONFLICT

The Chechnyan conflict with Russia goes back to the 1800s. The Muslims have consistently sought to establish an Islamic state in this region. The bitterness on the part of the Chechnyan and Ingush people toward the Russian people runs deep. They have indeed suffered under the rule of Russia, and there is a terrible backlog of rage.

The BBC made the following chronology available to help people understand what has happened here in this troubled region of the world... This is a partial listing.

1858 - Chechnya is conquered by Russia after defeat of Imam Shamil and his fighters, who were setting up an Islamic state.

1922 - Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in set up 1934.

1944 - Stalin deports the entire populations to Siberia and Central Asia. Thousands of Chechen and Ingush people die in the process.

1957 - Nikita Khruschev restores the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

1991 - Soviet Union collapses. Dzhokhar Dudayev proclaims Chechnya independent of Russia.

1992 - Chechnya adopts constitution defining it as an independent, secular state governed by a president and parliament.

1994 December - Russian troops crush the independence movement. An estimated 100,000 people - mostly civilians - are killed in the war.

1995 June - Chechen terrorists take hundreds of hostages at a hospital in Budennovsk, southern Russia. More than 100 are killed in an unsuccessful Russian commando operation.

Shariah law imposed

1999 January/February - Chechen leader Maskhadov declares Islamic Shari'ah law will be phased in over three years. July/August - Chechen jihadists battle Russian troops on the Chechnya-Dagestan border; Chechen jihadists invade Dagestan trying to create an Islamic state. September - Bomb attack on Russian military housing in Dagestan and a series of apartment block bombings elsewhere in Russia are blamed on Chechen jihadists. Approximately 300 people are murdered. Russian military march back into Chechnya. October - 200,000 civilians flee the Russian advance, leaving Chechnya for neighbouring Russian republics.

2000 February - Russian troops capture Grozny; City is razed. May -President Putin declares direct rule from Moscow. June - Russia appoints former Chechen cleric Akhmat Kadyrov as head of its administration in Chechnya.

2002 October - Chechen jihadists take 800 people hostage in a Moscow theatre. Most of the jihadists and 120 hostages are killed when Russian forces storm the building.

2003 March - Russians hail Chechen referendum vote in favour of a new constitution stipulating that the republic is part of the Russian Federation. Human rights groups, among others, are strongly critical of Russia for pushing ahead with referendum before peace has been established.

2004 June - Dozens killed in neighbouring Ingushetia in attacks reported to have involved hundreds of jihadist fighters. July - Aslan Maskhadov vows to carry on fighting.

2004 September - Jihadists attack Beslan School Number 1, taking an estimated 1,300 people captive. In the end, an estimated 338 people, over half children, were killed. There is also over 200 to 400 people missing. The numbers vary widely because of the difference between what the www.beslan.ru website gave, and the official government estimates.

 People have questioned statements linking Islam to this attack, citing many western media reports that the attackers were "separatists" or "militants" or even "freedom fighters" while making no mention of Islamic motivations.

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has made a statement that he organised the Russian school siege. In a letter published by leading rebel websites, he said a suicide battalion had carried out the Beslan attack. The letter also claimed bomb attacks on two Russian airliners and a Moscow metro station this summer.

An excerpt of his statement in Russian from Chechen websites should leave no doubt whatsoever as to the Islamic fingerprints all over this massacre.





"In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate... Who is responsible for the attacks on Rusnya [derogatory word for Russia]? By the Grace of Allah, the Shakhid [martyr] battalion, Riyad us-Saliheen [Gardens of the Righteous] has carried out several successful operations on the territory of Rusnya."

"Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate..." Yeah, right. Does anyone see a contradiction in terms here? Perhaps a slight incongruity? What kind of insanity is this? Your "god" is merciful and compassionate, so you go out and slaughter little kids and their moms!!?

Any questions?

SOME SURVIVOR AND EYE-WITNESS REPORTS...

 Remember little 10-year-old Georgy Farniyev? He's the kid sitting next to the bomb in the video released by the terrorists. He miraculously escaped death when the bombs went off. Here are some of his statements to the BBC...

 "They said: 'Sit down and if you make any noise, we will kill 20 children,'" Georgy told BBC correspondent Andrew Burroughs.

His mother talked of spending hours after the siege ended looking through body-bags trying to find her little boy. "It was the worst imaginable torture each time I looked inside the bags containing the remains of children, the ones with the most space inside," she said.

"Each time I thought I was about to see the face of my dead son - and each time I felt the most incredible relief before moving down the line to do it again," she said. Finally, a call from a hospital confirmed that Georgy was alive and being treated.

Some quotes from Georgy: "The explosion was very close to me and I still don't understand why I wasn't killed. I sat up and was just dazed while everyone else seemed to be screaming."

He says he asked one of his captors if he could get water to drink, then made his way to a room with a burst pipe.

Behind him, another explosion shook the building - thought to be from mines wired to the basketball hoops inside the school gymnasium. He returned to a scene of carnage.

"There were body parts - arms and legs - everywhere and wounded people screaming for help as the gunmen carried on firing at them. In the middle of it all was a dead woman who had been blown into two parts by one of the bombs. Everyone in the area where I had been sitting was dead from the explosions."

Shrapnel was lodged in his arm and he removed it before going to hide, he told the Associated Press. Amid the chaos, a pair of hands hoisted him out - it was a Russian soldier.

"I couldn't believe it - I was going to live," he said. A phrase crops up several times in his account. He repeated it like a mantra throughout the ordeal: "Stay as quiet as a mouse... as quiet as a mouse."

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Unnamed officer in special unit of Federal Security Service (FSB) in Russia TV interview

"We heard a powerful explosion, and the snipers who had been posted to keep an eye on things said the gym had blown up. Shooting began straight away...

"The hostages started running in our direction... We could hear the characteristic crack of bullets over our heads - they were firing from the direction of the school...

"I saw children with gunshot wounds being dragged. There were about 12 children who started running out. About four of our lads immediately, without waiting for orders, formed a human shield, and kept the windows [of the school] in their sights...

"All the entrances were barricaded from inside with desks, chairs and all sorts of rubbish they could gather... So we had to go in through the canteen window.

"When we went in, we had nowhere to tread on the floor - there were too many hostages, women and children...

"A gunman sprang out from a small utility room - it was a dead end, so he tried to break out. He shot one of our men at point-blank range and immediately threw a powerful grenade among the hostages. He was immediately killed by another of our men, who was injured by the fragments of that same grenade. It also killed several hostages.

"There was a dark corridor in front of us, and they were firing from there all the time. We stood a bit to the side, so as not to be hit. I shouted 'Throw a grenade in there!' but the lads said 'How can we? There are children in there!'...

"There were so many grenades being thrown at us, so much firing - what could we do, with all the children there? We could not throw grenades there or do anything. So that's how it was."

Marina Kozyreva, mother of schoolgirl Diana, spent the whole time in the school gym and was later interviewed by Kommersant newspaper

"Throughout the three days that we were held hostage we were virtually on top of each other. There were about 1,100 of us crammed in there.

"Periodically gunmen came in and for a joke ordered all of us to stand up or sit down. It went on like that all day long. They put a huge explosive device in the middle - about 50cm by 50cm - controlled by a trigger mechanism. One of the terrorists kept squeezing it with his foot. When they got tired they put a pile of books on the button.

"The children behaved very calmly - much more so than the adults. The adults were talking to each other and because of that the gunmen shot many of them. They were all prepared for death, especially on the second and third days, because the gunmen were saying nobody would be able to enter the school and also that people outside didn't give a damn about them. 'They don't even want to give you water or food,' they said. They said nobody had contacted them and nobody had requested anything from them.

"Sometimes they took the boys' clothes, soaked them in a bucket used for the floor mop, then threw the clothes at us, saying 'drink that!'"

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Marat Khamayev, 15, also spoke to Kommersant

"Initially we were escorted to the toilet together, then they stopped doing that, and only took the little kids. All the time the explosives were hanging above us - they used adhesive tape to fix it there.
 

"Before the assault the bandits started arguing with each other about something. I've spent a long time in Chechnya, I know the Chechen language, and they weren't speaking Chechen - they were just speaking a strange language like Arabic, and also Ingush.

"One of the gunmen was reading the Koran constantly, and I counted exactly 23 gunmen altogether. The leader was on the roof the whole time with a sniper's rifle. We realised that, because the others went to him for advice.

"The older pupils were forced to carry desks to barricade the windows. When the assault started one of the bandits shouted 'I'll save you'. Everybody ran towards him and then he blew himself up, killing many people.

"The whole time they never let anybody sleep - if somebody dozed off they would shake him awake again, saying 'no sleeping!' The explosion took place under the roof - there was no external explosion... When the assault came I pulled two girls out with me."

Diana Gadzhinova, 14-year-old girl hostage, speaking to Izvestiya newspaper

"It took us all by surprise. We were told there would be talks and we were ordered to lie face down [in the gym]... Then there was an explosion in the yard. Then there was shooting... [My sister and I] stayed where we were, lying on the floor. But suddenly there was another explosion above us and part of the ceiling fell in. People were screaming, there was panic.

"I looked up and saw some children lying on the floor covered in blood and not moving. There was a dead lady lying beside me. Torn-off arms and legs were lying everywhere. There were bombs hanging on the rope they'd strung up between the basketball hoops, across the gym. And now these bombs began going off, one after the other, coming closer and closer to us. Anyone who could get up ran screaming to the windows and the back entrance corridor. Alina and I were near a window [both sisters managed to escape unscathed]."

Irina, girl hostage

"I woke up under the debris and all was covered in sand - my ears, nose and eyes - and I could not see anything. Then we were taken to the dining room. There we were given water, then explosions started. And then we jumped out of the window and we were taken to the hospital."

Survivor Santa Zangiyeva, 15, spoke to Izvestiya

"There was this thin tall man of about 35, a typical Chechen, his right hand bandaged. He was the angriest of our captors, he was threatening us all the time and firing into the ceiling. It was so stuffy I was unwell, I fainted several times, so my mum asked him to take me to the corridor for a while to take a breath of air. To my surprise he agreed. In the corridor I was nearly sick, my legs gave way, and sat on a rucksack lying by the wall. But he said: 'Don't sit on this one, there are mines in it, sit on that one instead'...

"I asked him 'Will you at least let the children go?' He said: 'No - why? Your Russian troops in Chechnya catch children just like you and cut their heads off. I had a daughter, about your age, and they killed her,' he said."

Moskovskaya Gazeta interviewed Oleg Tideyev, whose son escaped from the besieged school

"I saw a wounded gunman fall out of the [school] window during the fighting. Militiamen were evacuating children nearby. When they saw the gunman, they tore him to bits within seconds. I did not even have time to realise what was happening. I'll be honest: not even for a second did I think - I am witnessing the killing of a human being. It felt like a venomous snake was being trampled...

"They were scum. Professional, well-trained scum. Their actions were highly skilful, their shooting was first-class - you could not raise your head... The only thing they did badly was booby-trapping the building. It was not a good idea to let the hostages assemble explosive devices."

Kommersant interviewed Anzor, a rescuer who helped in the smaller of the school's gyms

"We broke in, and saw piles of men and women, and children too. The children were naked from the waist up. There was nowhere for us to tread, but we had to go in, so we did.

"I pulled four people out. Many people were thrown to the corners by the blast, or maybe they crawled there themselves. Few were alive. We had to find those who were still alive, but how? I made two mistakes myself. When I pulled one young girl out, there was another explosion. Just before that, two girls shouted and waved to us from a window, one was about seven, the other a bit older. I waved back to show I'd come for them right now, and they laughed they were so happy! Then there was an explosion, and I never saw these girls again. I'll keep looking for them in the school..."

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I am at the end of my endurance to tell you more. This event has shaken me to the core. The magnitude of this attack, and the viciousness of the terrorists has left me numb. My views on the culpability of Islam are well-known. It is entirely possible that such views may one day cost my life, should I continue to express them. I have no illusions as to the lengths Islamofascists are prepared to go in the pursuit of their goals. I can only hope that millions of my fellow Americans will awaken in time to the threat before us.

I'm coming home. I've done all I can here for now.

Your servant and brother,

Dr. Bruce R. Porter

www.torchgrab.org