The Prosecutor General’s Office and law enforcement agencies will provide the necessary information and documents. “We are interested in having a full, objective picture of the events connected with the hostage taking in Beslan,” the President said.

Mr. Mironov also told Vladimir Putin that the upper parliament chamber would meet for an extraordinary meeting on September 20 to discuss the fight against terrorism, Mayak radio reports.

Meanwhile, US President President George Bush asked his top advisers to determine how authorities would handle a similar attack on an American school to ensure adequate coordination in the "unlikely but possible" chance of such an event in the United States, Secretary of Homeland Security Thomas Ridge was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The US Senate voiced its outrage at the "despicable" siege of the Russian school, Reuters reports. In a resolution approved unanimously, the Senate expressed "outrage at the recent terrorist atrocities" in Beslan. "The Senate condemns in the strongest possible terms this despicable act," it said. It also commended United States’ efforts to provide humanitarian and medical assistance.