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| Caucasus |
| Beslan hostage-takers trained at a summer camp |
| 2004-09-15 |
| Investigators have established new details about some of the terrorists involved in the Beslan school siege, the Vremya Novostey newspaper reports. The bodies of twelve attackers have been identified. As for the bodies of other Beslan terrorists, some of them were identified by Nurpasha Kulayev, the only member of the gang who was arrested, as well as by militants arrested during the raid on Ingushetia in June. According to them, two of the dead terrorists look like Ali Taziyev (known as Magas, also posed under the name of Magomed Yevloyev) and Ruslan Khuchbarov, better known as Colonel. But this is preliminary information, especially given that most of the bodies are disfigured. Most of information gathered by investigators refers to two terrorists - Iznaur Kodzoyev and Vladimir Khodov. It was established that Iznaur Kodzoyev was wanted by the police for kidnapping and involvement in bandit formations. His father Issa Kodzoyev was the leader of the Justice group. According to intelligence services, this group organized public rallies in Ingushetia back in 1992, calling for a fight against North Ossetia. Iznaur was first spotted by intelligence services in October 1998. "About ten people, including Kodzoyev, were returning from Grozny to Ingushetia. On the Chechen-Ingush border, rebels stopped the cars and kidnapped the whole group. Several hours later, Iznar turned up at home. He said he had escaped, but he did not sound convincing. Suspicion arose that he was linked to militants. But the hostages were released quickly, and Kodzoyev was not arrested," a security officer told the newspaper. In June, he took part in the raid on Ingushetia. He was thoroughly prepared for the operation. In August 2003, Kodzoyev received training at a rebel camp near the Ali-Yurt settlement. The Federal Security Service knew that Kodzoyev was one of the Beslan school attackers. His wife was found and taken to Beslan. She recorded a video message asking her husband to release the children. The cassette was passed on to the hostage-takers. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Meanwhile, a group of 20 Chechens was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetevo-2 airport. They were repairing schools in the Moscow region in the summer, Echo of Moscow reports quoting Nikolai Burkov, head of the Moscow region’s Main Department of Regional Security. these guys won't be getting much sleep tonight. I'm glad to see they are following up on this route! |
| Posted by: Anonymous6460 2004-09-15 5:01:02 AM |