Associated Press

Funeral processions snaked through this grief-wracked town as relatives buried victims of the school siege in southern Russia in rows of freshly dug graves, while frantic parents searched for missing children two days after the crisis erupted into violence that left more than 350 people dead. Wails of mourning women echoed from courtyards where families made ritual meals and from a football-field sized plot of land next to the cemetery, where men dug graves as surveyors across the road marked out new plots with wooden stakes and string. "When a person goes to the cemetery for a burial, it's sad, but nothing like this - when you dig graves for your children," said volunteer gravedigger Anzor Kudziyev, 25. Weeping mourners placed flowers and wreaths at the graves, including one where two sisters - Alina, 12 and Ira, 13 - were laid to rest together. For date of death, both read Sept. 3, 2004, the day the hostage seizure - the third deadly terrorist attack to strike Russia in just over a week - ended in an a bloody wave of explosions and gunfire when commandos stormed the school as hostages fled after powerful blasts shook the building. The paroxysm of violence left few families untouched in this tight-knit mostly industrial town, whose population of 30,000 belies a village atmosphere in which many leave their doors unlocked. Most people in Beslan had a relative, friend or neighbor killed or wounded. There were conflicting official reports of the death toll, apparently confused in part because of the large number of body fragments collected at the school. North Ossetia's health minister Alexander Soplevenko said at least 340 people were dead, while his deputy Taimuraz Revazov said 324 were confirmed dead. The regional health ministry said 180 people were missing after the three-day hostage crisis, which began when armed attackers raided School No. 1 on the first day of classes, seizing students, teachers and parents who brought their children to opening-day ceremonies. Russian media speculated that some of the missing could be wounded victims who were brought to various hospitals unconscious or too deep in shock - or just too young - to identify themselves. Also, many of the dead have not been identified, with some bodies charred beyond recognition. The health ministry said 207 of the dead had been identified. More than 700 people needed medical help after the crisis, and Interfax quoted Dzugayev as saying that as of late evening 386 remained hospitalized in the region, including 184 children. Several badly wounded victims have been taken to Moscow hospitals. As some residents buried their dead, others searched for relatives. Many expressed doubt over the government accounts of the tragedy's magnitude, a skepticism stoked by severe initial understatements by officials of the number of hostages, which exceeded 1,100. Questions also remained about the identity of the hostage-takers - state-controlled Channel One television, without citing a source, said Sunday that the attackers included Kazakhs, Chechens, Arabs, Ingush and Slavs - and about the events leading up to the chaotic climax of the crisis. North Ossetia's Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said Saturday that 35 attackers were killed. However, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said Sunday that according to the latest information, 32 terrorists had been involved and the bodies of 30 of them had been found, Interfax reported. Three suspects were detained Saturday in Beslan, Interfax reported. Fridinsky said the man, who spoke Russian with an accent, would be charged and that he was giving useful evidence. Russian officials said the bloodbath began when explosions were apparently set off by the militants - possibly by accident - as emergency workers entered the courtyard to collect the bodies of dead hostages. They said the militants opened fire on hostages who started to flee in the confusion, prompting security forces and armed locals to return fire and commandos to move in. Authorities said the blasts tore through the roof of the bomb-wired gymnasium where hundreds of hostages had been herded by their captors, sending wreckage down on victims and killing many of them. The school seizure came a day after a suicide bombing in Moscow killed nine people and just over a week after two Russian passenger planes crashed following explosions, killing all 90 people aboard - two attacks authorities suspect were linked to Russia's ongoing war in Chechnya. A shaken President Vladimir Putin went on national television Saturday to make a rare admission of Russian weakness in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists, and promised measures to "strengthen the unity" of the country. "We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," Putin said, blaming the weakness on the economic problems, ethnic discord and porous borders left in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Putin took a defiant tone, acknowledging corruption in Russian law enforcement agencies but lashing out pointedly at unspecified foreign foes seeking to tear the country apart. "Some want to cut off a juicy morsel from us, others are helping them. They are helping, believing that Russia, as one of the world's biggest nuclear powers, is still posing a threat to them," Putin said. Analysts said Putin had turned a new page in his foreign policy, blaming terrorism on the West. "(W)ho fears our nuclear weapons? Who are they aimed at? It's the West. It's not Osama bin Laden," said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst. Putin demanded "action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats." North Ossetian Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev, the region's top police official, offered his resignation Sunday, an official said, but Channel One television quoted a regional spokesman as saying it had not yet been accepted. Muradi Nartikoyev, one of the Beslan town elders who was officiating at mourning ceremonies, said the whole regional government should step down. "If they had fulfilled their duty, this would not have been possible," he said. North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov apologized, choking up in televised comments. "We were unable to protect our children, our teachers and our parents, he said.