The school attack in Beslan should become the basis for Russia’s future strategies to fight terrorism.

Oleg Khrabry

By the time you read this, it will already be known how many victims the terrorist attack claimed among the children and adults who came to celebrate the first day of school on September 1st in the North Osetian town of Beslan. There were many victims. Dozens, if not hundreds, of children and their parents were buried beneath the collapsed concrete roof of the auditorium and gymnasium. Many died from terrorist machine guns and hand grenades, once the terrorists understood that the assault was underway and all they could do was take as many of the living with them. When the bodies are dragged out from the rubble and counted—and there will be many bodies—everyone will start to ask themselves and those around them: did we win or lose? And it will be very hard to find an answer to this question.
The explosion at a Moscow bus stop, of two passenger jets, the decapitation of twelve Nepalese workers in Iraq, Palestinian suicide bombings of Israeli busses, the female suicide bomber at the Rizhskaya metro station, the war in Beslan…this is but a short list of what has happened in the last two weeks. In late summer and early autumn 2004, three years after 9/11, the world has become a single vulnerable organism. The world’s governments—from occupied Iraq to Israel cowering behind its security wall to Russia both fighting a war and managing democracy in the Caucasus—have never been in a tougher spot. Beslan is yet another point of reference.
Russia has had many “watershed dates.” There was Budennovsk in June 1995, Kizlyar in January 1996, the Chechen invasion of Dagestan in the summer of 1999, the apartment house explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, and the attack on the theater complex on Dubrovka Street in October 2002. We now need to add the plane crashes and the Beslan school attack on the same list as these “watershed” events.
No terrorist attack can succeed if the media pays no attention. For this reason, I understand perfectly that by publishing this article, I have become a weapon for terrorism. The strong public reaction to the tragic events of recent days was one of the aims of this demonic performance. Until recently, the Arab trainers of Chechen mojahedin fought among themselves to get access to internet sites because only a well-promoted personality can bring in steady funding. The now deceased Jordanian Hattab, when appearing before his subordinates, always emphasized that “we need to make noise” and “all we need to do is make noise.” Noise was also their way of reporting back to their sponsors.
The “Chechen Resistance” has conducted a long media campaign and involved everybody: European governments, the press, the American administration and NGOs, the Russian media and pop stars, security agencies, oligarchs in exile, the UN, pediatricians and housewives. The Maskhadov regime has now been chased into exile and many of its former officials have already been granted political asylum in the UK, France, and the US. This regime mobilized this motley crew of forces in order to return to power. They are trying to appear innocent—they weren’t there, and that means they didn’t do it—after this harvest of blood. They have even managed to succeed somewhat. During the Beslan crisis, the Bush Administration’s noted Kremlinologist, Richard Pipes, missed the point when he stated live on Radio Liberty that “This is all, of course, tragic, but all the Chechens want is independence! Moscow pulled out of Chechnya once, and that withdrawal was completely justified.” Meanwhile, US authorities for some reason demanded detailed searches of all planes arriving from Russia. If this is a legitimate war of Chechen national liberation, then why are the Americans so scared?
It’s worth noting that almost immediately after the attack began on the school in Beslan, the terrorists rushed to inform the New York Times that they were the Riyad as-Salihin and no one else. The information that appeared on Islamic websites that the two Russian jet explosions were the doing of some mysterious organization called the Islambuli Brigade can be seen as a decoy maneuver on the part of Maskhadov and his cronies. While this mystery brigade has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks and assassination attempts, in reality this group is actually a mythical internet worm, sent to take the heat off of those who were the main organizers and political beneficiaries of the terrorist attacks.

Security issues
To fight this new wave of terrorism, Russian authorities need to finally develop a clear-cut strategy, for instance that Russia will no longer negotiate with terrorists. Undoubtedly, security agencies themselves need to change fundamentally. The cluelessness of Russia’s law enforcement and security organizations is no accident; it has become the rule. Unfortunately, at present the higher echelons of the security clique lack both people actually carrying out their professional duties and strategists with interests beyond redistributing oligarch assets. FSB agents earning pitifully small salaries are certainly trying to do what they can. On Friday evening, a representative of the Northern Osetia branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated directly that “we rejected the option of using force to free the hostages from the very beginning. Our main emphasis was on negotiations with those persons demanded by the terrorists.” However, at a certain moment, the terrorists agreed to let officials collect the bodies of dead hostages and when Emergency Ministry officials came to get them, there was an explosion. The terrorists used the trick of handing over the dead as a decoy and after deciding to make their escape, collapsed under their own weight. Under such conditions authorities started to “act according to the circumstances.” They began to attack. Thus, the decision to storm the school was not made back at headquarters, but by the special agents themselves. Thank God that Russia has special security divisions like the amazing professionals of Alfa who immediately began to storm the school when it became clear that this was no time to negotiate. Their decisive actions were merely the result of miscalculations on a completely different level.
As we are learning today, locals saw some suspicious individuals several weeks before the attack, asking how to find School No 1 in Beslan. It is almost always this way: almost all Dagestanis knew that Chechen fighters were getting ready to attack a week in advance. Rumors spread among Ingushis several days before the June firefights began in Nazran. This means that the Russian security machine has turned from preventative mechanism into a gang of firefighters.

On smoldering coals
This most recent attack from the Chechen underground struck right at the center of command for the second Chechen campaign. The main Russian military base in the Caucasus is in Northern Osetia in the town of Mozdok. When military officials were debating where to launch the new attack on Chechen from, they chose Northern Osetia. The majority of Osetians are Christians and Northern Osetia is an island of loyalty in an otherwise explosive region. The school attack was an attempt to ignite the smoldering embers of one of the region’s cruelest conflicts, that between the Osetians and the Ingushis. Locals, having lost hope of revenge via federal forces, were supposed to take to arms. Another attack on Osetia came on June 22 and was conducted by the Ingushi Jamaat, led by Shamil Basaev, Doku Umarov, and Magomed Yevloev. They took Narzan and Karabulak, killing 98.
The story of Budennovsk presented at a conference for intelligence agencies shocked FBI agents. No one in the world had ever dealt with terrorist attacks that occurred over such a long period of time and such a large area. The story of Beslan will go down in history as yet another case of uncontrollable chaos, when some insisted that Aslan Maskhadov should be invited in as mediator, some swore they would not storm the building, and others did what they had to do, knowing that terrorists should not be allowed to escape with their lives. Appeasing an enemy means creating a monster. The terrible tragedy in Beslan was no appeasement. Anti-terrorist forces should consider attack the only option. Terrorists clearly did not expect things to drag on. They did not take any food or water with them. Their PR took place all by itself, and their nerves began to snap. The very fact that some of them had decided to flee meant that there was already no point in negotiating with them. The decision to storm the school was the only right decision.
Dubrovka was yet another chance to turn the Russian authorities’ anti-terrorist tactics around. Killing the terrorists should have sent a clear signal to future attackers: you will never get out of this alive. However, Dubrovka’s effect was blurred and can be compared to Salman Raduev’s last raid on Kizlyar and the people of Pervomaisk. Back then, eight years ago, 78 people died battling the troops of this arrogant rival of Basaev. However, most of his troops were destroyed. This was a lesson, but one of the many Russian authorities never bothered to learn.
After the terrorist attack in Beslan, we will not live in a safer world. For some countries, the idyll ended only three years ago. The end came for Russians in the late 1980s. Yet the most important message to terrorists, for which children lost their lives, must be put extremely clearly and firmly: you will never get out of this alive.

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