Tragedy in Beslan
Unspeakable horror has come to our blue marble once again.A catastrophic end to the siege of a school: at least 200 dead, more than 700 injured, most of them school children.
Explosives had been packed around children herded into the gym: one report said that bombs hung in basketball hoops in the hall exploded; another said that a female suicide bomber blew herself up.The roof came down, fires started. Bodies lay charred and burned beneath the debris and children in their underwear fled from the building as gunfire crackled around them.
Smoke poured from the wrecked building. More than 100 bodies were said to be lying in the gym while outside the bodies of more dead children lay on stretchers. Mothers held them and wept.
"We were lucky, really, that we had plastic windows in our sports hall. Otherwise there would have been more cuts and injuries. I saw people running away in all directions. Some 200 or 300 people were running in the same direction as we were."Cold-blooded killers stood on rooftops and shot terrified children in the back as they ran for their lives.The boy said that their captors had opened fire on the escaping hostages.
The terrorists were unspeakably cruel during the three-day ordeal:
One gunman, whose pockets were stuffed with grenades, held up the corpse of a man just shot in front of hundreds of hostages and warned: "If a child utters even a sound, we'll kill another one."When children fainted from lack of sleep, food and water, their masked and camouflaged captors simply sneered, she said, adding that adults implored children to drink their own urine in the intolerable heat of the gym.
She and other hostages said there was a little water but no food the first day. The hostages got nothing to eat or drink after that.
Gadieyeva told of three days of unspeakable horror of children so frightened they couldn't sleep, of captors coolly threatening to kill off hostages one by one. The gym where they were held was so cramped there was hardly room to move.
"We were in complete fear," said Gadieyeva, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter as she lay collapsed with exhaustion on a stretcher outside a hospital. "People were praying all the time, and those that didn't know how to pray we taught them."
Once again we see incredible bravery in the face of danger, as Russian soldiers risked their lives to dash in to the battle scene and grab those unable to run.
27 of the terrorists were killed: eight in the school and the rest in the city. Three of the monsters were captured.
Ruslan Pukhayev said his seven-year-old grandson Gennady was slightly wounded in the left shoulder by an explosion.The boy sat on a stretcher dipping a biscuit into some warm sweet tea. The grandfather hovered above him.
“It’s incredible. Of course it’s amazing,” the old man said. “The whole thing is horrible for him. The whole thing happened before his very eyes. It will be years before he understands it. My god, who needed this?”
Who indeed?
As details come out it is believed that it was a Black Widow that began the carnage by blowing herself up. These are women dressed head-to-toe in black with only their eyes exposed. They first appeared at last October's hostage-taking in a Moscow theater. Now they attack schools and terrify children.
A local man, Teimuraz Kanukov, who was helping the emergency services, said he had shuttled six times between the school and the hospital ferrying hostages, three wounded, three dead. His shirt was soaked with blood."These were children," he said, "shot in the head."
Unspeakable horror has visited our blue marble again. This is an act of barbarity that equals that of 9/11, for although the death toll is not as high the sentiment is the same. The barbarity is the same. The callous brutality is the same. The intent is the same.
Once again, Islamic extremists have traveled onto foreign soil to perform monstrous acts. Ten of the 27 murderous monsters that perpetrated this atrocity were Arab, and there are reported ties to al-Qaida.
The pupils' torpor ended abruptly when a deafening blast tore through the gym, Bekoyev said. Bullets whistled overhead. Many thought a full-scale war had broken out.Only fools think that this will do anything but spark anger. Only fools believe that constructive results can come from these tactics. Only fools cannot see that this strengthens our unity and determination."Everyone started to scream. It was unbearable. It was total carnage," Bekoyev said.
"The terrorists screamed: 'You will never leave this place! Pray to God, we've come here to die for Allah along with you!"'
"Everyone started to fire randomly. Then I saw a 10-year-old boy riddled with bullets lying on the floor."
Today we weep for the innocents of the town of Belsan, a place we never knew existed. Today we are all Russians, united in grief. Today we are all Men, united in our resolve to see this evil exterminated from the face of our fair planet.
The world is fighting a war and we must win.
We must. And we will.
We will seek these souless creatures wherever they hide. We will kill their leaders and when more leaders rise up, we will kill them as well, for these animals cannot be allowed to do this ever again.
We must defeat this evil now, because these are not images that we want seared into the memories of our children.
Blog post #3479 in category
War, Terrorism,& the Military
posted 3 September 04
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