Hundreds Held Hostage in Russia School


By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Attackers wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people ? half of them children ? and threatening to blow up the building. At least two people were killed, one of them a parent who resisted an attacker.


The attack was the latest violence blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels, coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people in the capital and a week after near-simultaneous explosions caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board.

President Vladimir Putin interrupted his working holiday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and returned to Moscow. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia's Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.


The school seizure began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children to the facility which covers grades 1-11. The attackers forced children to stand at the windows and warned they would blow up the school if police tried to storm it, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.


The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that hostage-takers released 15 children, but Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told The Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building's boiler room. He denied that any hostages were released.


Gunfire broke out after the raid and at least two people were killed, including a father who had brought his child to the school and was shot trying to resist the attackers, said Fatima Khabolova, a spokeswoman for the regional parliament. She said most of the attackers were wearing suicide belts.


An attacker also was killed, and nine people were injured, including three teachers and two police officers, Polyansky said. More gunfire and several explosions were heard about three hours later, the Interfax news agency reported.


Suspicion in both the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. "In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.


The latest violence also appears to be timed around last Sunday's presidential elections in Chechnya, a Kremlin-backed move aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed along with more than 20 others in a bombing on May 9.


The school attackers demanded talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.


The hostage-takers also demanded the release of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia   in June, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing regional officials. Those well-coordinated raids killed more than 90 people.


Regional emergency officials said about 400 people including some 200 children were being held captive, ITAR-Tass reported. A regional police official said the hostages had been herded into the school gymnasium.


There were 17 attackers, both male and female, Interfax said, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service.


In television footage from outside the school in Beslan, a town about 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz, men in camouflage with heavy-caliber machine guns took up positions on the perimeter and other men in civilian dress with light automatic rifles paced nervously.


At one point, a girl in a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair ran around a corner apparently after fleeing from the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier, followed by an older woman. Russian news reports said about 50 students managed to escape, some after hiding in the school's boiler room during the raid.


"I was standing near the gates, music was playing when I saw three armed people running with guns, at first I though it was a joke, when they fired in the air and we fled," a teenage witness, Zarubek Tsumartov, said on Russian television.


The attack was the latest in a string of violence that has tormented Russians and plagued the government of Putin, who came to power in 2000 vowing to crush the Chechen rebels.


Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly following the plane crashes and the suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing 10 people and wounded more than 50.

A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.

The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

Several female suicide bombers allegedly connected with the rebels have caused carnage in Moscow and other Russian cities in a series of attacks in recent years.

Many of the women bombers are believed to be so-called "black widows," who have lost husbands or male relatives in the fighting that has gripped Chechnya for most of the past decade. Investigators of the plane crashes are seeking information about two Chechen women believed to have been aboard ? one on each plane.



Hostage Crisis Unfolds in Russia as Guerrillas Seize School


By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: September 1, 2004


MOSCOW, Sept. 1 — Heavily armed insurgents, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, seized a school in southern Russia today and herded scores of schoolchildren and others into its gymnasium.

More than a dozen guerrillas, including men and women, stormed Middle School No. 1 in the town of Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia, not far from Chechnya on Russia's southern border with Georgia, just moments after the opening of the new school year, according to officials there and news reports.

Gunfire erupted during the seizure and afterwards. At least 3 people were reported killed and at least 10 wounded, according to preliminary accounts.

The local police, as well as special forces and soldiers from Russia's 58th Army, surrounded the school, creating a nervous standoff that continued into this afternoon. Rossiya, the state television network, showed a camouflaged soldier rushing a young girl, dressed in a light lavender dress, to safety.

With the school in their hands and evidently trip-wired with explosives, the guerrillas released one hostage with a list of demands, officials told official news agencies.

A man who answered the telephone at the school and identified himself as "the press secretary" of the fighters said they wanted talks with the leaders of North Ossetia and neighboring Ingushetia, as well as with a pediatrician who took part in negotiations with insurgents who seized a Moscow theater in October 2002.

"Wipe your sniffles," the man said, speaking in Russian with a distinct Chechen accent, when asked what they wanted to discuss with the officials, and then hung up.

The school's seizure occurred the morning after a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a subway station in Moscow, killing at least 9 others and wounding 50, in the latest convulsion of violence that has struck fear across Russia. That attack appeared linked to the bombings of two passenger airliners, which crashed simultaneously on Aug. 24, killing 90.

Russia's defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, speaking in Moscow even as the hostage crisis unfolded in the south, said the attacks scourging the country amounted to a state of war.

"War has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Mr. Ivanov told journalists. "This is regrettably not the first and I fear not the last terrorist act."

President Vladimir V. Putin, for the second time in eight days, disrupted his working vacation in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and returned to Moscow, as he did the day after the two airliners crashed. On the eve of a state visit to Turkey, Mr. Putin earlier told Turkish journalists that Russia would never negotiate with terrorists or separatists in Chechnya, who have now been fighting Russian forces in the republic since 1994.

"We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them," Mr. Putin said, according to the Interfax news agency.

With scores of hostages in a school gymnasium, however, officials in North Ossetia said they were trying to open talks with the guerrillas in hopes of ending the siege peacefully.

The guerrillas later sent a videocassette and another note with a mobile telephone number, but security officials outside had difficulty establishing contact, Oleg Sogolov, a spokesman for North Ossetia's president, said in a telephone interview. No specific demands have been made by the guerrillas.

They threatened to destroy the school if any attempt was made to free the hostages. At one point children appeared in the school's windows, apparently being used as human shields.

It was not immediately clear how many guerrillas were involved nor how many hostages were being held, though officials estimated there were as many as 200 hostages in the school's gymnasium. Middle School No. 1 in Beslan has nearly 900 students overall and 59 teachers, officials said.

The guerrillas' raid came only moments after an opening-day ceremony attended by students, their parents and teachers. The first day of school is one of the most festive days for families in Russia, with children and parents dressing up and carrying flowers to greet their new teachers.

In the chaos surrounding the siege, at least some children who had hidden during the initial assault escaped.

The man who answered the phone, speaking with a Chechen accent, said he represented the Second Group of Salakhin Riadus Shakhidi, a rebel band believed to be headed by Chechnya's most notorious rebel commander, Shamil Basayev.

Mr. Basayev has previously been involved or claimed responsibility for some of the worst attacks in Russia stemming from the long conflict in Chechnya. They include a raid in 1995 into Budyonnovsk, a town near Chechnya in Stavropol region, during the first war there. In that attack, Mr. Basayev's fighters killed 147 people and then held more than 1,000 people hostage in a hospital.

That raid ended when they loaded hundreds of hostages on buses and drove to Chechnya. He also claimed responsibility for the wave of rebel attacks in Ingushetia in June that appeared to be at the center of the guerrillas' demands on Wednesday.

The siege in Beslan had portentous echoes of one of the most notorious terrorist acts in recent Russian history: the hostage crisis at a Moscow theater in October 2002.

A band of insurgents, also including women wrapped in explosives, seized the theater during a performance of a popular musical, "Nord- Ost," and held more than 700 hostages for 57 hours before commandoes stormed the building. At least 41 rebels died in the raid, but so did at least 129 hostages, most from the effects of a nerve gas that had been pumped into the theater hall.




Security Council to meet on Wednesday at Russia's request

Interfax. Wednesday, Sep. 1, 2004, 9:11 PM Moscow Time

MOSCOW. Sept 1 (Interfax) - The UN Security Council will gather in New York at 5:00 p.m. local time on Wednesday (1:00 a.m. Moscow time on Thursday) to deal with the latest terrorist attacks in Russia.

"At today's meeting of the UN Security Council, Russian Representative Andrei Denisov will raise the issue of coordinating the council members' response to the recent series of terrorist attacks in Russia," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that has been posted on its website.




Chechenpress

Appeal by the Government of the ChRI to the UN Security Council

London, 1 September - Ahmed Zakayev, Special Representative of President Aslan Maskhadov, published an appeal by the Government of the ChRI to the UN Security Council.

"In connection with reports about the intention of the UN Security Council to discuss recent terrorist acts in Russia in the context of the Chechen conflict, the government of the ChRI greets this consideration. We have always thought that the events in Chechnya aren't an internal Russian problem, and that they are subjected to international jurisdiction. The world community must finally focus its attention on the tragedy of the Chechen and Russian peoples, into which the policy of the Kremlin leadership has plounged them.

The government of the ChRI resolutely condemns the recent acts of terror, directed against the civilian population, and declares that it has absolutely nothing to do with them. These actions have been carried out by people whose reason has been eclipsed by the nightmare of the Chechen tragedy and the pain of personal losses. Such actions don't contribute to make long-awaited peace coming any closer on the long-suffering soil of the Chechen nation, which is continuing the centuries-old struggle for its independence.

At the same time, a censure of these actions won't help to stop the terror, if the world community disregards the reason for it. The political responsibility for the escalation of violence in Chechnya and around it lies with the Russian side, which is guilty of massive and systematic atrocities against innocent civilians. The government of the ChRI warned already long ago that the refusal by the Russian side to search for a peaceful solution to the crisis at the negotiating table will only lead to the strengthening of radical elements and to the loss of control of the situation. In the light of the latest events, we can state that these fears are becoming a reality.

We are calling the Security Council, after condemning the acts of terror, to call the Russian Federation to reexamine the policy of war and annihilation of the Chechen people and to recognize that the resolution of the conflict is the prerogative of the UN. We again declare that we are ready for a political solution of the Chechen problem under international control."

A. Zakayev, London, 1 September 2004.

Chechenpress, Division of Operational Information, 02.09.04

http://chechenpress.com/news/2004/09/02/12.shtml [Translation by N.S.]




News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International

AI Index: EUR 46/048/2004        1 September 2004

Russian Federation: Civilians targeted and killed in recent spate of violent attacks

Amnesty International strongly and unreservedly condemns the hostage-taking of children in southern Russia, the latest of a series of incidents in which civilians have been targeted.

Media reports say that up to 150 pupils, parents and teachers are being held hostage today by gunmen in the city of Beslan in North Ossetia. The gunmen are reported to have threatened to blow up the school if it is stormed by police and troops. They are said to be demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.

In separate incidents, at least nine people were killed and many were wounded in a suspected suicide bomb attack near a Moscow underground station on 31 August 2004 and on 24 August 2004 89 people were killed in the explosions of two civilian airplanes. A group, calling itself the Istambouli Brigades, claimed responsibility for both incidents. It threatened to continue operations "until the killings of our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ceases".

Amnesty International strongly condemns the deliberate targeting of civilians and in the incident in North Ossetia, the targeting of children, who were going to school on the first day after summer holidays. Their lives have been put at risk and their human rights blatantly ignored.

"Hostage-taking is unacceptable in any circumstances and can never be justified. Those who commit such a crime are in clear breach of international humanitarian law, in particular Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and should be brought to justice," Amnesty International said today.

"We are calling on those responsible to release the hostages immediately, unconditionally and unharmed."

"The Russian government has the duty to protect its citizens and to bring perpetrators of such violent acts to justice. We are calling on the authorities to ensure that any use of force and firearms is fully consistent with international standards and will not put in jeopardy the lives of the hostages," Amnesty International said.


Russian Federation in the AI Report 2004: http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacBZDaa9Fw9beuxZvb/

Visit Amnesty International's Russian language website at http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacBZDaa9FxabeuxZvb/


IHF and MHG condemn attacks against civilians in Russia

(Moscow, Vienna, 2 September 2004) The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) condemn in the strongest terms the recent outbreak of attacks against civilians in Russia. In three separate incidents, six days apart, individuals suspected of being linked to Chechens fighters deliberately targeted and killed over 100 civilians and wounded dozens more in acts that may only be described as “terrorism�.

These incidents were:

· On 26 August, two civilian aircraft were destroyed mid-air in separate explosions timed just minutes apart, killing eighty-nine passengers and crew. The aircraft had taken off for Volgograd and Sochi respectively from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. Forensic specialists later determined that traces of explosives had been found among the aircrafts’ wreckage. Initial enquiries focused on the suspicion that two ethnic Chechen women, one aboard each plane, had detonated explosives they were carrying. At time of writing, a second theory had emerged; that the bombs had been planted on the aircraft at the airport before takeoff.

· On 31 August, an explosion outside Ryzhskaia metro station in Moscow killed at least ten persons and injured fifty-one more. Initial reports stated that a lone female bomber intended to enter the metro station but detonated the explosives on the street after sighting police standing by the metro entrance.

· On 1 September, a group of approximately thirty armed men and women, believed to be Chechen fighters, burst into a school in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia and took over 300 pupils, parents and teachers hostage. Some of the children were reportedly as young as six years old; news reports state that among the hostages were mothers with breast-feeding infants. The fighters have reportedly herded the hostages into the school sports hall and claimed to have planted explosives about the school, threatening to detonate the explosives if the authorities launch a rescue attempt. According to initial reports, the fighters are demanding to hold talks with the Ingush president, Murat Ziazikov, the president of North Ossetia, Aleksandr Dzasokhov and a paediatrician, Dr. Leonid Roshal. Dr. Roshal rose to prominence during the Nord Ost theatre siege in October 2002 when he conducted negotiations between the fighters and the authorities.

According to preliminary information, the fighters are calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and are seeking the release of detainees arrested following the 21 June fighter assault on Ingushetia. Local human rights groups had reported complaints by these detainees that they were being subjected to torture and ill-treatment. The detainees from the June assault are reportedly being held in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia.

“This rash of attacks on innocent civilians is abhorrent and senseless�, stated Ludmilla Alexeyeva, chair of the MHG and president of the IHF. “There can be no justification whatsoever for targeting civilians, especially young schoolchildren, in this cowardly manner�, she added.

The IHF and MHG urge the hostage-takers in Beslan to release the civilians in their custody immediately and unharmed. The IHF and MHG also urge the Russian authorities to address the climate of impunity in Chechnya, where very few serious human rights violations against civilians committed by Russian security forces are ever punished. The IHF and the MHG consider that this impunity is linked to the rise in violence in the North Caucasus and elsewhere in the Russian Federation.

“The climate of impunity enjoyed by Russian security forces in Chechnya is nurtured by the gross inaction of the Russian investigative and judicial authorities�, stated Aaron Rhodes. “Addressing this impunity, through the prosecution of the perpetrators of these violations in fair trials, is the first step towards establishing peace and security in the region�, he added.

See, also: Chechnya: Renewed Violence and Human Rights Abuses Undermine Credibility of Presidential Elections; IHF/MHG press release, 30 August 2004; and IHF Condemns Killing of Chechen President, Akhmad Kadyrov Conditions Must Be Created for Free and Fair Elections; IHF/MHG press release, 10 May 2004.

For more information contact: Aaron Rhodes, International Helsinki Federation (IHF): +43 676 635 6612 Malcolm Hawkes, International Helsinki Federation (IHF): +7 095 974 7544 Tanya Lokshina, Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG): +7 916 624 1906


__________________________________________
Joachim Frank, Project Coordinator International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Wickenburggasse 14/7 A-1080 Vienna Tel. +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 22 Fax: +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 50 Web: http://www.ihf-hr.org
______________________________________



CHECHEN REPUBLIC OF ICHKERIA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Thursday, 02 September 2004

Official statement on the hostage taking in school in Northern Ossetia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically rejects attempts of the Russian government to put the responsibility for the hostage taking in school in Beslan (Northern Ossetia) to the leadership of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

The leadership and the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria do not have any relation to the hostage taking in Beslan. President Maskhadov and the political and military Chechen command categorically condemn all forms of terrorism.

No matter who is behind these taking children in hostages in Beslan, we categorically condemn this act of terrorism and join the Security Council of the United Nations in calling for the release of the hostages.

At the same time, we deeply regret that the Security Council of the United Nations has never condemned or expressed condolences about the more than 42.000 Chechen children that have been killed in Chechnya at the order of the Russian government.

For ten years Russia has been killing the Chechen nation right in front of the eyes of the all humanity using most barbaric means of state terrorism and genocide. The Security Council of the United Nations and all other international organisations and national governments must either held Russia accountable for her mass and systematic crimes in Chechnya or admit the hypocrisy of their position towards the still ongoing Russian genocide of the Chechen nation.


Press Office Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

www.chechnya-mfa.info



Militants release 26 hostages from Russian school

Thursday, September 2nd, 2004

By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press

BESLAN, Russia (AP) - Militants holding some 350 hostages at a school in southern Russia released at least 26 women and children Thursday, soon after gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that got too close, shaking the area with explosions and scaring relatives waiting outside for news.

The developments came after a night of telephone negotiations between Russian authorities and the militants, who stormed the middle school Wednesday, rounding up children and adults into a gym and threatening to blow up the building if police launch an assault.

Local official Lev Dzugayev called the release "the first success" and expressed hope for further progress in negotiations.

Dzugayev announced the release of three women and three children - prompting a crowd of hostages' relatives and friends swarmed around him in an attempt to find out information about who was freed.

Moments later, the rescue operation's headquarters announced that 26 hostages were freed. It was not clear if those included the six announced by Dzugayev, an aide to the president of North Ossetia, the southern republic where the school is located.

Regional parliamentary spokeswoman Fatima Kabalova said that several elderly women and a group of children were freed, adding that the releases were not announced publicly to avoid a crush from media and anxious relatives.

An Associated Press Television News reporter saw soldiers escorting two women and at least two children away from the school. The children were in the soldiers' arms. Russian television showed camouflage-clad men carrying babies, one wrapped in a blanket and one without a shirt.

Valery Andreyev, the Federal Security Service's chief in North Ossetia, seemed to rule out the immediate use of force against the hostage-takers, suspected of being insurgents from the nearby war-torn region of Chechnya.

"There is no alternative to dialogue," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted him as saying. "One should expect long and tense negotiations."

Sporadic gunfire chattered in the area through the night, keeping the hundreds of relatives keeping vigil around the school on edge.

On Thursday - 30 hours into the crisis - two large explosions about 10 minutes apart rocked the area, raising a cloud of black smoke. The crowds of people rushed to police barricades surrounding the school, trying to see what happened.

The rescue operation's headquarters said militants in the school fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that had apparently driven too close to the building. Neither car was hit, the headquarters said. The cordon made it impossible to see exactly what happened.



Radio Liberty Reporter Babitsky Detained in Moscow Airport

Created: 02.09.2004 14:28 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:21 MSK,

MosNews


A reporter working for Radio Liberty, Andrei Babitsky, was detained in Moscow's Vnukovo airport on Thursday, the Echo of Moscow radio reports with reference to an informed source at the airport.

The source has told the radio station that Andrei Babitsky was set to leave for the town of Mineralnye Vody in the Northern Caucasus. Shortly before his departure he and another passenger got into a fight. Both of them were arrested and a case under the article hooliganism was been instigated. The case will now be sent to the nearest court, the source said.

The Chechenpress web-site reported on Thursday that Babitskiy himself had said he had been detained on suspicion of attempting to carry explosives.

Babitsky gained notoriety in 2000, when he went missing in Chechnya only to resurface a short time later in Dagestan. He claimed that he had been held by Federal security services and exchanged for Russian soldiers captured by Chechen rebels.

Russian authorities put the reporter on trial for using a forged Azeri passport. The court in Dagestan found the reporter guilty and sentenced him to a fine, but Babitsky was immediately amnestied. The reporter protested his innocence and demanded a re-trial, but to no avail.




Chechnya Gripped by Stalinist Terror, or Where Do Suicide Bombers Come From

02.09.2004 09:35 MSK (GMT +3),

Alice Berenfeld

MosNews.com


Why are women traveling from a remote southern Russian region all the way to Moscow to put on explosive belts and kill themselves, taking innocent bystanders' lives with them? Oleg Orlov of the International Society Memorial, Russia's top human rights organization, sheds light on the reasons that push Chechen suicide bombers to their drastic actions. The number of quiet, undocumented kidnappings of people from their homes by federal forces in Chechnya is comparable to statistics for the peak of Stalinist repressions in 1937-1938.

"Over the past one and a half years it's become the biggest plague," says Orlov of the kidnappings. Before, Chechen civilians used to be subjected to a different kind of horror, known as zachistki, or "mop- up operations." As a way of combating guerillas, the military blocked off entire villages and then searched every house, checked everyone for ID, randomly detained people and questioned them. The questioning was more often than not combined with beatings and torture.

Then Russia's president Vladimir Putin finally responded to mounting international pressure to improve the human rights situation in Chechnya and pointed out that the military must not swoop down on the entire population, but, rather, go after specific targets. In theory, that makes sense. But in Chechnya, targeted work has turned into targeted kidnappings. "People come in armored vehicles without license plates and take people away. Like in Stalin's times," Orlov says.

Memorial estimates that approximately 3,000 people had vanished in Chechnya during the four years from 1999 to 2003. Given Chechnya's estimated population of 700,000, that works out to approximately 43 disappearances per every 10,000 people. During the height of Stalinist terror, people were plucked from their beds at night and taken away, never to be seen again; the figures for those years are, 44 disappearances per every 10,000 people. Back in those days, slander or hearsay information from a malevolent neighbor or co- worker was often enough to doom someone.

Which is exactly what's happening in Chechnya — people are beginning to inform on each other as a way of personal revenge or sometimes for "commercial" reasons — for instance, if a member of a well-off family is taken away, ransom can be demanded. Over the past years, says Orlov, he's seeing a hereto unknown feeling paralyze Chechen villagers: fear. "It used to be that fear was considered beneath Chechens, that they must be courageous and open." And now, "Chechens are afraid of Chechens. Neighbors are afraid of neighbors."

In the light of these changes, the previous tactic of zachistki begins to make sense. It seemed like a dumb way of combating terrorism, Orlov says — taking all the men of a village, beating them, and asking them ridiculous questions, such as "Where is Basayev?" (Shamil Basayev is one of Chechnya's militant warlords; according to some hypotheses, he's behind the current attack on a school in southern Russia) or "Who are the rebels in your village?" However, when the beatings are conducted on a mass scale, someone's bound to crack. Someone's bound to say something, implicating one or another fellow villager. And then this someone is forever hooked by the special services.

"From that moment on, this person can always be handed a bill," Orlov says. "You can always say to him — 'Hey, man, do you remember how last year you said something about some people from their village and then they disappeared or else fragments of their bodies were found in the forest? Do you realize that now you have to always tell us things?'" Thus, the zachistki of two years ago helped create a region- wide network of informers — whose reports are now used to execute the targeted kidnappings of today.

The people who are kidnapped most often disappear without a trace. Some are returned to their families, beaten, mangled, miserable, after a ransom is paid. Some are held in illegal jails run by federal agents — jails that everyone knows about but does nothing about, jails that are undocumented and where for that reason following the law is not obligatory. One such jail operates right in the center of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya — despite official letters by a State Duma deputy who has called attention to the fact.

Women who lost their husbands or brothers to state politics of terror, or whose children were brutalized during the zachistki might feel so lost as to feel that kamikaze tactics are their only recourse. Mulling over the recent Moscow-based terrorist acts, Russian newspapers express amazement at the fact that the women currently suspected of blowing up the airplanes and bombing the subway over the past week seem to have no good reasons for revenge. Thus, the default assumption is that women who have been hurt have a good reason to want to die and take innocent people they've never seen with them. The words smertnitsy (literally, death row women) and shakhidki (shaheedeen, or martyrs, in Arabic) have permanently entered the Russian vocabulary.

"Unfortunately," Orlov says, "this situation [in Chechnya] is what creates a basis for terrorism. People feel completely unprotected by the Russian legal system. People are angry. Some of them start sympathizing with terrorists; others lose all frame of reference and start helping them. There is a mass of insulted, humiliated, desperate people.