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Law enforcement agencies have established the identity of some members of a group that seized a school in the North Ossetian city of Beslan, Valery Andreyev, head of the North Ossetian Department of the Federal Security Service, told reporters. “We have managed to establish their identity,” he said.
For his part, North Ossetia’s Interior Minister Kazbek Dzatiyev said the group of attackers included Ossetians, Ingushes, Chechens and Russians, according to preliminary information.
According to him, the terrorists said they would only speak to Aslanbek Aslakhanov, State Duma member for Chechnya, North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, and also the physician Leonid Roshal, who helped negotiate during a theater siege in Moscow in October 2002. Doctor Roshal talked to the hostage takers over the phone last night. The conversation continued until 3 a.m.
According to the latest information, there are about 400 schoolchildren in the school, apart from parents and teachers. The calculation was based on consultations with the relatives of those people who could have been in the school. The militants still refuse to take medicines, food and water for the hostages.
Criminal proceedings had been opened under Articles 105 (Murder), 205 (“Terrorists”), and 206 (“Hostage taking”), Valery Andreyev said.
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
