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| Caucasus |
| Leader of Hostage-takers surrounded |
| 2004-09-03 |
| Three of the gunmen who took hostages in the south Russian town of Beslan are surrounded and continuing to put up armed resistance from the basement of a residential building, the Itar-Tass news agency reports. Earlier reports said that 10 of the hostage-takers were killed during the storming of the school, but the overall number of gunmen was estimated at about 30. The head of the North Ossetia directorate of the Russian Security Service said that the resisting gunmen were possibly still holding some children hostage. Sources in the law enforcement agencies have told Itar-Tass that the hostage-taking had been directed by the field commander Magomed Yevloyev, aka Magas. They said the operation had been planned by Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted Chechen rebel, who has been behind several major attacks outside Chechnya. Russian officials say rebels fighting for the region's independence from Moscow are under strong influence from Wahhabism, a strict form of Sunni Islam. Wahhabism, the only permitted form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, is banned in Russia. "Apart from that, there is information that the hostage seizure was financed by one of the ideologists of Wahhabism, Abu Omar As-Seyf, who is al-Qaeda's representative in Chechnya," one source was quoted as saying. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Is "Ivan 6-pack" aware of what happend in Khatmandu, Nepal after the Jihadis murdered the Nepalese workers in Iraq? Will we see any Zyefir e Sosiskiy * Roasting at the local mosques because of the murdered children? * Marshmallow and Hot Dog |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-09-03 1:08:51 PM |