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Effiom Alexander
Professor Joe Johnson
Maryland Terrorism
2016,16,02
Beslan School Massacre
September 1, 2004, Beslan, Russia, on this day in this place one the most brutal, sadistic,
disturbing, and painful terrorist attacks happened. Doing this research paper has taken me to
some of the darkest places I have ever been to. Between the savage rapes, and torture, and
killings, these men of the devil himself had just one goal, which was to die.
The people involved in this event where the Ingush and Chechen Islamic terrorists, the
people of Beslan, and the Russian government. The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of
Russia, which is located in the north Caucasus region with its capital Magas. This is one of
Russia’s smallest federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg
(en.wikipedia.org 1). The Chechen republic is commonly known as Chechnya, it as well is a
federal subject of Russia. After the defeat of the Soviet Union, they split Ingush and Chechen
countries up. Next, we have the victims, the people of Beslan; Beslan is located 950 miles south
of Moscow and close to the border with the Republic of Ingushetia. Migrants from Ossetia
founded it. Beslan is an important railway junction situated on the main line between Rostov-On-
Don, which is a major metropolitan area and Baku, which is the largest city in the world located
below sea level, which is also a metropolitan area.
The foundation of the attacks starts with where and how the school is located. The street
that the school was located on was called Commenter Street School Number One of the seven
schools in Beslan; it has a town of about 35,000 people in it and is located next to a police
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station. The school had a newly reinvaded gym that was 33feet wide and 82 feet long, this will
be important letter in the report because it was the first day of the new school year.
The motions of the attack started by the men disguising themselves as repairman back in
July of 2004 to seek in weapons and explosives in the school and when the attack started they
made the hostages start digging up caches of them. They also made a snipers nest on top of the
roof of the sports hall. When the attack was going forward, the terrorists left their forest
encampment wearing military camo. Heading towards the school along the way they captured a
police officer’s badge and gun and took Him as a captive, He escaped and ran to the police
station next to the school. Unfortunately, that did not stop them as they had sleeper cells in the
school already and others as they showed up in cop vans, and military trucks. The shock of the
hostages did not set in because at first they thought it was a military training or drill for their
special forces, until the shots rang out (en.wikipida 2). That is when they knew things were going
to get bad.
As the situation was starting some of the hostages hid in the boiler room in order to hide
from the terrorists. As they hid the police had already shown up and there began the first
shootout between the terrorist and the police which also included armed civilians. In the end one
attacker was killed, two were wounded, and several bystanders were injured ( CNN 1). In total,
the guerrillas took 1,128 people hostage, took their cell phones, and told them to speak Russian.
Now here is where things start to really get bad. One of the fathers named Ruslan Betrozov stood
and tried to calm the people down who were being held hostage in the gym and reported the rules
in the local language was approached by a gunman who asked if he was done, then shot him in
the head. When another father did not went to kneel, He was also shot and bled to death. Then
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they dragged the bodies of them out leaving a blood trail, which was then later filmed by the
takers.
During the first day, the terrorists pushed the people to the sides of the gym where they
set up explosives and set up wire to leave the middle of the gym open, which later would be used
for their twisted minds. During that time they also strapped explosive belts to some of the
women and lead them to the upstairs cafeteria where then they singled out twenty of the
strongest adult Males. At this time an accidental explosion happened where one of the females
who was wearing a belt blew up and killed another female bomber who was already dead. Now
here is where the twisted minds of this man came into play. After the explosion, the guerrillas
made the hostages carry the bodies to the roof to throw them over or else they were going to get
shoot. On top of carrying, the dead out they were also made to clean the blood and guts of the
killed off the floor.
Now between days one and two some of the most disturbing things happened where it is
hard for myself to talk about but in the name of researched it must be shared. The terrorists beat
the children regularly and as they beat them up they laughed and watched the children cringe as
they were about to strike them causing paralyzing fear. If that was bad they raped the helpless
girls in front of the people in the gym in the middle of the floor, this was a massacre and was
clearly a sexual homicide/suicide (pamelageler 1).
The terrorists wanted more than simple terrorism. Some of the terrorists at the school
were hired guns who did not plan to die but just to be paid, but what they did know was the
Russians would not let them out alive and once that realization sat in on them plans changed. The
terrorists did not just get excitement by the cruel mistreatment but by the excitement of rape and
killing the victims after, by which I mean the raped the girls and then killed them. Schoolgirls
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were being raped with guns and objects and as this took place, the only thing the people in the
gym could do was watch as the terrorist laughed at the pain they put them through. The peak of
which this is as the weather was extremely hot they had no working air conditioning as the heat
got bad the terrorists would drink in front of the hostages and mock the kids as they cried for
water. It got so bad victims were forced to drink their own urine. In some cases, the hostages
poured urine over each other in attempt to keep cool (pamelageller 2). One of the most brutal
things that was said by a Russian named Tagirovich Khuchbarov when he said to a child who
asked for water or use the restroom “I’m not your uncle, I’m a terrorist…I came here to kill.”
(pamelageller. 2)With that being said all hope was lost. Into the third night, they ordered the
hostages to throw naked dead bodies out into the west yard.
On the final day which was 09-03-2004, there was an agreement made between the
between the government, and the terrorists, that they were allowed to take out the bodies that
where in front of the school. So four ministry emergency medical workers in two ambulances
went to remove 20 bodies, as well as to bring out the corpse of the killed rebel. As soon as they
got close, two explosions went off near the gym and that is when all chaos broke loose. As the
explosions went off the terrorist opened fire killing two of the medical workers. As this happen,
the roof collapsed on the hostages and many of the terrorist were injured (Crime 3). The flames
of the explosions and roof clasping killed 160 people (Crime 3). Now how these explosions
happened were based off that the terrorist have insecurely attached them and had fallen, another
theory is that one of the terrorist tripped over one of the wires. As this happened armed civilians
started shooting and the terrorist started shooting back. In the end, the Russian commandos
initiated a tactical entry and effort in killing all the terrorists that were in there while they were
freeing the hostages and trying to kill the terrorists. In a last ditch, effort the terrorist started
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killing the hostages as they were leaving the area (Crime 4). So just in the crossfire hostages and
Russian forcers where being killed as well as the terrorists. At the end of a two-hour battle only
about 10 of the terrorist where left who ran to a two story building, tanks and flamethrowers shot
down that building.
We as people ask ourselves, why? Why would someone want to do this to these people?
One of the answers I found out was from group called the Jonsquill Ministries, where they stated,
“My conclusion about why Beslan was targeted was because it was becoming a center of
Christian activity (Ministries 1). With that being said how do we say hey to a Muslim without the
fear of them trying to kill us? It separates them from every other religion to the point of isolation,
which I believe is wrong but only time will heal the wounds of the damaged.
Now the final question is how this can happen in our own state of Maryland, and it is
very simple the same way the terrorist took over the school in Beslan can be done in any school
in Maryland. Once we understand that concept, we can train our school staff on what to look out
for during summer breaks and winter breaks. A better screening process can be put in place as
well once the contractors start coming into the school as well.
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Work Cited
Gillmore, James. "Beslan School Hostage Crisis." 26 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
<www.crimetv.com/page/true/massacares/Beslan-school-hostage-crisis/877>.
Ministries, Jonsquill. "Why Beslan?" Jonsquill Ministries. 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Oct.
2014. <www.jonsquillministries.org/MEAntiC8.htm>.
"Beslan School Siege Fast Facts." Cnn. 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.
<www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/europe/beslan-school-siege-fast-facts/index/html>.
Geller, Pamela. "Jihad in Russia: Beslan’s Child Massacre, a Horrible 8-year Anniversary
— Raping for Allah - See More At: Http://pamelageller.com/2012/09/jihad-in-russia-beslans-
child-massacre-a-horrible-8-year-anniversary-raping-for-
allah.html/#sthash.plZ7fnw1.dpuf."Pamela Geller. Pamela Geller, 1 Sept. 2012. Web. 9 Oct.
2014. <http://pamelageller.com/2012/09/jihad-in-russia-beslans-child-massacre-a-horrible-8-
year-anniversary-raping-for-allah.html/>.
Gillmore, James, and Borris Bazelais. Crime Tv. James Gillmore, 26 Feb. 2010. Web. 9
Oct. 2014. <http://www.crimetv.com/page/true/massacres/beslan-school-hostage-crisis/877>.
