Whitehall Report 2-07 - RUSI...Whitehall Report 2-07 Negotiating the Impossible? The Beslan Hostage...

Whitehall Report 2-07

Negotiating the Impossible?The Beslan Hostage Crisis

Adam Dolnik

The Royal United Services Institute

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Negotiating the Impossible? The Beslan Hostage Crisis

Adam Dolnik

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the hostages, investigators, negotiators, witnesses and journalists whoshared their experiences with me. I would also like to thank Kelly McEvers, Elena Pavlova and AdelaKubickova for their companionship during various parts of the field research component for thisreport. My deepest gratitude goes to Ismail, whose courage and loyalty helped me return fromChechnya safely. I would like to dedicate this report to two of the bravest women I have ever met:Beslan hostage, Larisa Kudzyeva, and journalist, Anna Politkovskaya (in memoriam).

Author

Dr Adam Dolnik is Director of Research Programs and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre forTransnational Crime Prevention (CTCP), University of Wollongong, Australia. Formerly, he served asChief Trainer at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Instituteof Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, and as a researcher at the Weapons of MassDestruction (WMD) Terrorism Project at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Californiaand at the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch in Vienna, Austria. He is also the author ofUnderstanding Terrorist Innovation: Technology, Tactics, and Global Trends (Routledge, forthcoming inMarch 2007) and Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists (Westport, CT: Praeger SecurityInternational, forthcoming).

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Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1:Background 5

Chapter 2:Event Chronology 9

Chapter 3:The Failure of Negotiations 18

Chapter 4:Learning from Failure 30

Chapter 5:Conclusions 42


1

On 1 September 2004, a group of terroristsseized more than 1,200 hostages in SchoolNumber One in the North Ossetian town ofBeslan. It was the first day of the new schoolyear. The deadliest hostage crisis in historywas about to unfold. After a fifty-two hourstand-off, detonation of explosive devicesinside the school triggered a chaotic rescueoperation, in which 331 people were killed,2

176 of them children. The Beslan schoolhostage crisis was an unprecedented terroristattack, both in its scale and targeting. It wasnot only the largest ever terrorist takeover ofa school,3 but also the third deadliest terroristattack in world history. It is therefore clearthat learning the lessons from Beslan is oneof the key prerequisites for designing effec-tive counter-terrorism strategies for thetwenty-first century.

Despite its global infamy, the Beslanschool tragedy still remains a widely misun-derstood phenomenon. What really hap-pened during the incident? Who were theattackers, and what was their goal? What wasthe treatment of hostages like? Was it possi-ble to resolve the crisis via the process ofnegotiation? How did this incident reachsuch a tragic end? All of these questions areyet to be satisfactorily answered. Based onexhaustive open source research in three lan-guages, examination of thousands of pages

of witness testimonies and court transcripts,analysis of available video footage, andextensive field research in Beslan, Chechnya,and Ingushetia, including the inspection ofevidence left behind in the school, visits tothe perpetrators’ home villages, reconstruc-tion of their trip from their training camp toBeslan, and dozens of interviews withhostages, witnesses, relatives, negotiators,and investigators, this report will analyze themyths and facts of the attack, with the clearpurpose of identifying successes and failures.Particular attention will be devoted to ananalysis of the events that took place in termsof negotiability, in an attempt to provide ananalytical perspective on the possible alterna-tives that were available to the Russianauthorities as the incident progressed. A critical inquiry into the incident is especiallyimportant, as lessons learned from pasthostage crises are an invaluable tool in devel-oping future response frameworks.

Why is Beslan relevant today?Ominously, there is ample evidence to suggest that another Beslan-type incident islikely, if not inevitable. Globally-distributedterrorist manuals indicate that terrorists arestudying and learning past barricade hostageincidents, such as Beslan. For instance, issueten of Al-Qa’ida’s online resource, al Battarfeatures a highly analytical guide to hostage-

Introduction1

1 Some portions of this report have appeared elsewhere in shorter form. The negotiation aspect of Beslan wasanalyzed in a paper entitled, ‘The Beslan Hostage Crisis’ which was presented at the Processes of InternationalNegotiation Workshop, ‘Negotiating with Terrorists’ at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis,Laxenburg, Austria, 9-10 June 2006. The counter-terrorism lessons of the crisis are analyzed in a chapter entitled,‘The Siege of Beslan’s School Number One’, which will be published in James J F Forest, Countering Terrorism in the21st Century, (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, forthcoming in 2007). Finally, some portions of this report are alsoincluded in: Adam Dolnik and Keith M. Fitzgerald, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists (Westport, CT:Praeger Security International, forthcoming in 2007).2 This number excludes the thirty-one terrorists killed.3 Other famous hostage crises in which terrorists targeted schools include the 1974 Democratic Front for theLiberation of Palestine attack in Ma’alot, Israel, and the 1977 takeover of a school in Bovensmilde in the Netherlands.

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taking written by the late Abdul Aziz alMuqrin, the former leader of Al-Qa’ida inSaudi Arabia. In this manual, al Muqrin pro-vides detailed instructions on every aspect ofcarrying out a high profile barricade hostageincident – from the selection of team mem-bers and their training to treatment ofhostages and conduct of negotiations. The alBattar manual, as well as recent hostagecrises, such as the Moscow theatre, theBeslan school, the Oasis residential com-pound in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, or the recent-ly disrupted plot in Prague, are a clear indication that barricade hostage-taking willhenceforth: • entail a much greater willingness to

execute hostages;• feature large teams of willing-to-die

hostage-takers, who will have the capa-bility of effectively repelling a possiblerescue operation; and

• include members who will havedetailed knowledge of the hostagenegotiation and rescue teams’ ‘cook-book’.

If we are to keep up with the challenge, wemust also learn from lessons of past attacksand adjust our response strategies according-ly. Beslan, in particular, provides many ofthese invaluable lessons.

Consider the set-up: • more than 1,200 hostages, most of

them children; • a team of some fifty to seventy well-

trained hostage-takers strategicallypositioned around the school andapparently ready to die;

• unconditional demands that seemedimpossible to meet;

• 127 explosive devices set up around theschool that can be activated with a sin-gle button;

• security cameras installed by the terror-ists around the school to monitor allentrances;

• gas masks and two sentry dogs in placeto help detect and counter a possibleuse of incapacitating gas;

• twenty-one hostages already executedand a dozen more killed during the ini-tial takeover;

• the hostages inside suffering fromimmense heat exhaustion and lack offluids; and

• outside, a group of angry parentsarmed with guns, threatening to shootthe rescue team members if theyattempt to storm the school.

Quite simply, this was a nightmare scenariothat would present an unprecedented chal-

Figure 1: Characteristics of a Negotiable Hostage Incident (FBI) 1. The desire to live on the part of the hostage-taker.2. The threat of force by the police.3. The hostage-taker must present demands for release of hostages. 4. The negotiator must be viewed by the hostage-taker as someone who can hurt but desires

to help.5. The negotiator needs time to develop trust with hostage-takers.6. The location must be contained and stabilized to support negotiations.7. The hostage-taker and negotiator must have a reliable means of communication, either

by phone or face-to-face. 8. The negotiator must be able to ‘deal’ with the hostage-taker who controls the hostages

and makes the decisions.

Source: McMains, Mullins, Crisis Negotiations: Managing Critical incidents and Hostage Situations in Law Enforcement andCorrections, Anderson Publishing 2nd edition, 2001.


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lenge for any response team in any country inthe world.

At first glance, it is obvious that we arenot prepared. While there are many trainedcrisis negotiators around the world, hardlyany of them have ever had contact with a ter-rorist hostage-taking incident. Further, thetraining curriculum of most hostage negotia-tors focuses on resolving crises that do nottake into consideration issues such as ideolo-gy, religion, or the differing set of objectivesand mindsets of ideological hostage-takers.This, in particular, characterizes the ‘new’breed of terrorists: less discriminate, morelethal, and better prepared. Further, many ofthe paradigms and presumptions upon whichthe contemporary practice of hostage nego-tiation is based do not reflect the reality ofBeslan-type incidents.

For example, Figure 1 summarizes thecharacteristics of a negotiable incident,which are currently used by the US FederalBureau of Investigation (FBI) and other crisisnegotiation bodies as the basic guideline fordetermining whether a given hostage inci-dent has a chance of being resolved throughthe negotiation process. Additional checklistsand criteria are also used. As will becomeapparent throughout this paper, most ofthese conditions were not satisfied in Beslan,and numerous other obstacles and indicators

of volatility were present as well. Further,the conditions of adhering to many of thestandard FBI guidelines for crisis negotiations(Figure 2) were simply not present. Hence,following the current ‘cookbook’ of crisisnegotiation teams, the Beslan situation couldonly be resolved through a tactical resolu-tion. But how does one proceed with such adecision if there are more than 1,200hostages inside, the opposition is ready fordeath and has made numerous preparationsto make an assault as costly, in terms ofhuman life, as possible? Under such condi-tions, is a full breach really the preferableoption? Or even a plausible worst case alter-native? Do other, less volatile means exist?This paper will explore some of these issuesusing the Beslan case study.

The greatest limitation of this reportstems from the fact that most availableaccounts of the hostage crisis differ signifi-cantly in their description of virtually everyaspect of the incident. In addition, the storyhas mutated over time and many differentversions and pieces of evidence, which cloudthe picture even more, have been introduced.This is further complicated by governmentsecrecy, vested interests, media censorship, aswell as the fact that even eyewitness accountsare often contradictory. Some details are stillbeing disputed, and therefore some aspects

Figure 2: FBI Guidelines for Crisis Negotiations1. The use of time to increase basic needs, making it more likely that the subject will

exchange a hostage for some basic need. 2. The use of time to collect intelligence on the subject that will help develop a trade. 3. The use of time to reduce the subject’s expectation of getting what he wants. 4. Trades can be made for food, drink, transportation, and money. 5. Trades can not be made for weapons or the exchange of hostages.6. The boss does not negotiate.7. Start bidding high to give yourself room to negotiate (ask for all the hostages). 8. Quid pro quo: get something for everything. 9. Never draw attention to the hostages; it gives the subject too much bargaining power. 10. Manipulate anxiety levels by cutting off power, gas, water, etc.

Source: McMains, Mullins, Crisis Negotiations: Managing Critical incidents and Hostage Situations in Law Enforcement andCorrections, Anderson Publishing 2nd edition, 2001. p. 37

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of the crisis cannot be determined withabsolute certainty. For the sake of complete-ness, alternative interpretations of the dis-cussed events or author’s comments on theuncertainty of specific pieces of informationare included as footnotes. For a complete pic-ture, it is important to pay particular atten-tion to this supplementary information.

The first part of this report will analyzethe lessons of past incidents and apply themto the unfolding Beslan situation. The secondpart will provide a chronology of the crisis,with specific focus on the negotiation aspect.The third part will then analyze the negotia-

bility of the incident, incorporating an analy-sis of the strategic calculus behind the attack,indicators of volatility and de-escalation, andthe failures of the strategy employed inBeslan. The fourth part will highlight someof the other critical aspects of the incident,including the rescue operation, media man-agement, discrepancies in the investigation,and events that occurred before Beslan,which in retrospect could have provided anintelligence picture concrete enough to pre-vent the attack in the first place. And finally,the conclusion will look at the lessons learntand prospects for the future.


5

Soon after the takeover of School NumberOne (SNO), it was obvious that the Beslanattack carried all the signs of an operationmasterminded by the infamous Chechenwarlord, Shamil Basayev. There was a large,heavily armed team of militants dressed incamouflage, women wearing suicide belts,the use of mines and booby-traps to securethe site, the strategic positioning of snipers,and more general signs of meticulous prepa-ration. At the same time, however, this earlyidentification of the likely culprit providedan opportunity to assess the situation basedon Basayev’s previous hostage incidents, witha key focus on past demands, readiness toexecute hostages, history of enforcing dead-lines, past negotiation strategies of bothsides, and the final settlements. Not only cansuch an analysis provide an insight into theterrorists’ calculus behind the attack, it canalso generate precedents, set by past agree-ments, that serve as valuable markers forhostage negotiators in subsequent communi-cations.

BasayevBasayev’s involvement in terrorist activitydated back to November 1991 when he andtwo associates hijacked a Russian TU-154 air-craft from Mineralnye Vody to Ankara,threatening to blow up the plane if Russia didnot lift the state of emergency in Chechnya.The attackers hosted a press conference, andafter receiving a guarantee of safe passage

back to Chechnya, they allowed the planeand passengers to return safely. Then on 14June 1995, just weeks after a Russian bombdestroyed Basayev’s home in Vedeno, killingeleven members of his family, including hisAbkhazian wife and children, he personallyled a 142-strong commando unit for‘Operation Jihad’ in Moscow (specifically atthe Mineralnye Vody Airport) to ‘stop thewar or die’. The team made it all the way tothe Russian town of Budyonnovsk, but hav-ing run out of bribe money, the group wasarrested and brought to the police station.4

Once there, previously undiscovered fightersemerged from three Kamaz trucks andseized some 2,500 hostages in a hospital,demanding that Russian forces pull out ofChechnya.5 To resolve the crisis that unfold-ed, the responding Russian forces, led by theelite Alpha commando unit, twice assaultedthe Chechen positions but were forced toretreat, partially due to the terrorists’ use ofhostages as human shields.6 The stand-offcontinued for another five days, after whichBasayev’s men negotiated with then PrimeMinister Viktor Chernomyrdin a free passageout of Budyonnovsk, as well as theannouncement of a temporary cease-fire anda declaration of the Russian commitment toserious negotiations with Chechen represen-tatives. The Budyonnovsk siege killed 166hostages and injured 541.7

Budyonnovsk was significant for severalreasons. Firstly, it was the first Chechen oper-ation deliberately targeting Russian civilians.

Chapter 1: Background

4 Aukai Collins, My Jihad (New York: Pocket Star Books, 2002) p. 80.5 John Gidduck, Terror at Beslan, (Golden, CO: Archangel Group Inc., 2005) p. 68.6 John Arquilla and Theodore Karasik, ‘Chechnya: A Glimpse of Future Conflict?’ Studies in Conflict and Terrorism,Vol. 22 ( July – September 1999).7 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: ‘Fact Box: Major Terrorist Incidents Tied to Russian-Chechen War,’ Internet.Available at <http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/d981dd2d-8b08-41ff-a2e2-ada25338093c.html>. Accessedon 11 December 2004.

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Commenting on the objectives of the siege,Basayev stated: ‘We wanted to show to thepeople in Russia that this war is very close tothem too; we wanted them to see what bloodlooks like, and how it is when people aredying. We wanted them to understand it, towake up.’8 This statement is crucial, as iteffectively summarizes the entire strategiclogic later adopted by Basayev’s Riyadus-Salikhin Suicide Fighters Battalion (RAS), thesame group that held the hostages in Beslan.The second point of significance lies in thefact that in Budyonnovsk, Basayev succeededin forcing the Russians into a humiliating position of giving in to his demands, a development that not only gave him a highlevel of confidence in the effectiveness of thetactic used, but also shaped Russia’s reactionsto similar incidents in the future.

The tremendous success ofBudyonnovsk gave Basayev mythic statusamongst Chechen separatists. He embracedlarge-scale hostage-taking operations as hissignature tool, especially following SalmanRaduyev’s imitative attack in Kizlyar.9 After

this raid, Basayev criticized Raduyev for anegotiation failure, but also boasted:‘Budyonnovsk and Kizlyar will repeat themselves until Russia recognizes theChechen Republic’.10 Not surprisingly, whenthe need came to launch a spectacular terror-ist operation in 2002, Basayev returned to hissignature tactic and designed an ambitiousplan to perpetrate four major acts of terroragainst the civilian population in Moscow‘with explosions in densely populated placesas part of a tactic to frighten’, culminating inthe seizure of the State Duma.11 However,following two failed bombing attempts inMoscow, Basayev modified his plan, and on23 October 2002, a group of at least forty-three armed men and women took 979 people hostage at the Dubrovka Theatre inMoscow. This ‘Basayev-style’ hostage-takingoperation lasted for fifty-eight hours andended in a controversial rescue operationthat resulted in 129 dead hostages, most ofwhom died due to gas exposure during therescue.12

8 Paul J Murphy, The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror, (Dulles: Brasseay’s Inc, 2005).9 Six months after the Budyonnovsk incident, another crucial hostage event took place in Dagestan, where SalmanRudayev’s 250-strong Chechen commando unit took more than 2,000 hostages at a hospital in the city of Kizlyar, andagain demanded the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. Somewhat unexpectedly, the rebelswere again granted free passage, and an eleven-bus convoy carrying the commandos plus 143 hostages evacuated thearea. As the convoy approached the Dagestani-Chechen border, Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted a surpriseattack aimed at freeing the hostages and punishing the terrorists. The rebels, however, were able to fight off theinitial attack and retreated to a small nearby village of Pervomayskaya, seizing twenty-five additional hostages in theprocess. There, another long stand-off began. Patience wore thin on the part of the Russians, and on 15 January1996, they launched a furious assault on the village. Outnumbered ten to one, the Chechens were still able to holdoff the Russian troops, though, at times, a good portion of luck was involved. On 16 January 1996, while the rebels atPervomayskoe continued to hold off the assault, another commando unit sympathetic to the Chechen cause hijackeda Black Sea ferry, the Euroasia, and threatened to blow it up – along with the 255 hostages on board – unless theRussian army stopped the siege. In addition, yet another group of rebels kidnapped thirty employees of a Russianpower plant in Grozny and issued similar demands. Finally, the Pervomayskaya siege ended when the rebels, aided bya complete breakdown of Russian morale and by reinforcements smuggled in from Chechnya, managed to escapethe village. The next day, after the Russian forces finally took control over Pervomayskaya, the hijackers of theEuroasia called off their plan to blow up the ship and surrendered to Turkish authorities. The exact number ofcasualties of the Pervomayskaya siege remains unreported.10 Murphy, Op cit., p. 54.11 ‘Chechen terrorist planned to seize Parliament building in Moscow’, Pravda.RU. Available at:<http://newsfromrussia.com/accidents/2003/06/20/48458.html>.12 Adam Dolnik and Richard Pilch, ‘The Moscow Theater Incident: Perpetrators, Tactics, and the Russian Response’,International Negotiation, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2003).


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Evolution of Strategic MindsetWhat were the objectives of the theatre raid?The demands appear straightforward, butbased on previous Russian responses to simi-lar incidents in Budyonnovsk and Kizlyar, theRAS team was absolutely convinced thatsooner or later the Russians would launch anassault.13 As such, the apparent aim was toachieve maximum casualties among thehostages as a result of the rescue operation, inan attempt to ‘show to the whole world thatRussian leadership will without mercyslaughter its own citizens in the middle ofMoscow.’14 If this was indeed the goal, thenthe operation succeeded, as all but three ofthe 129 fatalities were victims of the rescueattempt. However, Basayev appears to havegrossly miscalculated the reaction of theworld community to the ‘Nord-Ost’ opera-tion, which, in the wake of 9/11 and follow-ing an effective public relations effort byMoscow, ended up overwhelmingly sidingwith the Russians. This fact would later beresponsible for the immense radicalizationand escalation of the RAS campaign, inwhich the group apparently discarded anyconsideration for international public opin-ion. In a statement published in the immedi-ate aftermath of Dubrovka, Basayev wasquick to condemn the world for its‘hypocrisy’, stating that if the world had ‘onetenth of the sympathy [expressed forDubrovka victims] for the Chechens, the warwould have ended long ago’. Basayev alsomade a gory promise: ‘The next time, thosewho come won’t make any demands, won’t

take hostages. There will be just one maingoal: annihilation of enemies and inflictingupon the enemy, the maximum possibledamage.’15 During the next twenty-fourmonths, he would live up to this promise bywaging a campaign of fourteen suicidebombings resulting in the deaths of nearly500 people. These included the synchronizedsuicide bombings onboard two domesticflights16 and at a Moscow train station in theweek leading up to Beslan. The strategic cal-culation behind the taking of childrenhostage in an Ossetian school certainly con-firms the increasingly apocalyptic nature ofBasayev’s thinking.

There are several important implica-tions that stem from the analysis of thehostage-takers’ behaviour during pasthostage incidents, as well as from the overallshifting mindset of Basayev’s strategy. In allpast hostage crises, the operations have beenextremely daring and well-planned, and allinvolved an unusually high number of ready-to-die commandos, some of whom werewomen. In addition, in all cases, there was astrategic deployment of snipers, mines andbooby-traps to secure the site, which alongwith the exceptionally large number ofhostages and hostage-takers, made thelaunching of casualty-free rescue operationspractically impossible. All past operationspresented a single demand: the uncondition-al pull-out of Russian forces from Chechnya.In all cases, the hostage-takers presenteddeath as an inevitable part of their mission,but after several days, the perpetrators chose

13 Confirmed by one of the terrorists, Abu Said, who remarked in a live interview for Azeri TV: ‘Yes, they willdefinitely attack. We are waiting for this attack.’ (FBIS ID# CEP20021026000120).14 Shamil Basayev, ‘Statement of Chief of the Military Council of State Defense Council, Majlis al-Shura, of theChechen Republic of Ichkeria Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris concerning the events of 23–26 October 2002 in Moscow’.Available at <http://62.212.121.113/www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/articlebe27.html?id=605>. Accessed on 19October 2004.15 Ibid.16 On 24 August 2004, two female suicide bombers detonated hexogen bombs killing all eighty-nine passengers andcrew. This was the first time since 1970 that two aircraft were simultaneously bombed in mid-flight, and only thethird historical incident in which suicide bombers were used to attack aircraft. The planners apparently studied theirtargets well, as suggested by the small amount of explosives used and the fact that both women sat by the windowjust nine rows from the tail – generally considered to be the most vulnerable part of the aircraft.

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to live and evacuate the location when anopportunity presented itself. In all previouscases, there was a willingness not only tonegotiate, but also to release hostages inde-pendently or in exchange for certain conces-sions. In all these cases, the terrorists letdeadlines pass, and only in Budyonnovsk,when Basayev executed five Russian militarypersonnel, some of whom had sufferedwounds in battle on the first day, was the exe-cution of hostages involved.17 It is also clearthat in all of these incidents, the Chechenssucceeded in attracting wide internationalattention and then attempted to deflectresponsibility for the deaths of the hostagesonto the Russian leadership. Beslan clearlyfits into the picture, as the stakes were raisedby specifically targeting children. A finalimplication of Basayev’s operational progres-sion stems from the predictable pattern inRussian responses. In any hostage incident inRussia, it is absolutely certain that theRussians will employ an armed response.The standard procedure is to create the per-

ception of exhausting all possible negotiationoptions, while at the same time gatheringintelligence, and launching an assault on orimmediately after the third day of the crisis.Basayev obviously knew this; further, he hadalso learnt not to trust Russian promises afterhis team was deceived in Dubrovka.18 Thiswould make any future incident even moredifficult to resolve.

Overall, from a negotiator’s perspec-tive, it was immediately clear that Beslanwould be extremely challenging – but notimpossible – to negotiate. From the perspec-tive of a terrorism analyst, it was obviousthat a bloody rescue operation would eventu-ally put an end to the siege, and that thiswould most likely happen on the third day ofthe crisis.19 The terrorists knew this, too.According to hostage Regina Kusraeva, onthe first day of the Beslan siege one of thehostage-takers told the hostages: ‘Judging bypast experience, we suspect that there will bean assault. If the lights go out, everybody layon the floor, but don’t run; they’ll kill you.’20

17 In Dubrovka, two people were also executed, but neither was a hostage, and the killings constituted a measurenecessary to maintain control of the auditorium, not one designed to pressure the authorities at a deadline. Andwhile the moral responsibility for the killing of people is the same, from a negotiator’s perspective these differentcircumstances carry different implications.18 On the evening of the second day of the crisis in Dubrovka, the terrorists received a telephone call from GeneralKazantsev, who promised to come to Moscow to negotiate the following day. The terrorists were happy and relieved,calling off their deadline for executions of hostages and letting their guard down. Several hours later, the rescueoperation was launched.19 ‘Analysts Say School Storming Possible Despite Putin’s Statement’, MosNews, 2 September 2004.<http://moGoals of the snews.com/news/2004/09/02/analysts.shtml>.20 ‘Kulayev’s trial provides new details on Beslan’, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 23, 16 June 2005.


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This section of the report will provide a basicchronology of the events that unfolded inBeslan, with a specific focus on the negotia-tions. In doing so, some details and wideraspects of the crisis have not been addressed.Some excellent, more detailed descriptiveaccounts are publicly available21 and an inter-ested reader is strongly encouraged to con-sult them for additional information.

Day 1At around 0800 on 1 September 2004, thegroup of terrorists set off from their camplocated in the woods near the village ofPsedakh in the Malgobek district of theneighbouring Republic of Ingushetia. Justafter 0900, they arrived at School NumberOne (SNO) in Beslan, and with swift actiontook over 1,200 people hostage. Originally,the attackers divided the hostages into class-rooms, later gradually summoning them intothe gymnasium and deploying 127 home-made explosive devices around the schoolbuilding. In the gym itself, devices wereplaced in basketball hoops, hung on a stringrunning through the middle of the gym, andpasted them to the walls.22 Some of the malehostages were immediately selected out ofthe crowd and forced to hang up bombs andto barricade windows in the hallways andclassrooms. An hour into the siege, the ter-rorists announced their plans and set theground rules, among them the order thateveryone only speak in Russian. One of thefathers, Ruslan Betrozov, got up and translat-

ed the terrorist speech into Ossetian,23 andtried to calm everyone down. When he wasfinished, a terrorist came up to him andasked: ‘Have you said everything you wantedto say?’ The man nodded and was then shotto death in front of his two sons.

The terrorists were highly organized.There were only about seven guards insidethe gym at any given time, but they wereworking in shifts. The only two doorwaysinto the gymnasium were guarded by twofemale suicide bombers, whose role alsoincluded the supervision of small groups ofhostages to and from the bathroom. Otherterrorists were dispersed in classrooms andthe cafeteria, with the main leaders spendingmost of their time in the library and the sec-ond floor teachers’ room, where televisionsand the remote detonation mechanism forthe daisy chain of explosive devices were alsolocated.

The initial response to the incident con-sisted of a brief shoot-out between armedparents, who were the first ones to arrive atthe scene, and the hostage-takers. As soon asthe terrorists warned that they would kill tenhostages for every single one of them killed,the shooting stopped. Soldiers and police-men only started arriving at the scene anhour and a half into the siege, despite themain police station being located a mere 200metres from the school. It was later reportedthat the late arrival of policemen was causedby the duty officer, who held the key to theweapons locker, not being located for a full

Chapter 2: Event Chronology

21 The best works on the Beslan events include: Uwe Buse, Ullrich Fichtner, Mario Kaiser, Uwe Klussmann, WalterMayr, and Christian Neef, ‘Putin’s Ground Zero’, Der Spiegel, 27 December 2004, pp 65–101; John B Dunlop, ‘Beslan:Russia’s 9/11?’, The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya and The Jamestown Foundation, October 2005; C JChivers, ‘The School: The inside story of the 2004 attack in Beslan’, Esquire, June 2006, Volume 145, Issue 6.22 Plater-Zyberk, Op cit.23 Thereby breaking the ground rules.

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forty minutes.24 The operational commandcentre was set up nearby in the TechnicalSchool Number Eight, and was headed bythe President of North Ossetia, AleksandrDzosokhov. Several hours after the takeover,two Deputy Directors of the Federal SecurityService of the Russian Federation (FSB),Vladimir Pronichev and Vladimir Anisimov,arrived from Moscow along with severalother officials and set up another head -quarters.

At this time, it has been reported thatthe terrorists began calling from the win-dows for the release of some of the attackersarrested in the June raid on Nazran,Ingushetia.25 However, this demand does notfigure anywhere in the official record of thenegotiations. Initial telephone contact wasallegedly handled by a local FSB negotiator,Vitalii Zangionov.26 He spoke to a man, whoon the inside was known as Ali, but for thenegotiations used the name, ‘Sheikhu’. In theinitial conversation, the negotiator focusedon the issue of providing medical help for theinjured, and offered to get the terroristsaccess to the media.27 Ali responded mock-ingly: ‘Why would I need a doctor – I’m notill. Why would I need journalists? I did notcome here to shoot a movie.’

In this initial conversation, Ali alsodemanded Alslanbek Aslachanov, Putin’s spe-cial advisor on Chechnya, to come to Beslanfor negotiations. In an apparent attempt tostall for time, the negotiator raised the issuethat Aslakhanov was in Moscow, to which Alireplied: ‘Airplanes don’t fly in Moscow orwhat?’ He was subsequently offered some-thing else, to which he answered, ‘I don’t

decide these things. I’m just the press secre-tary. Let me check with the emir.’28

From the very start, it was clear the ter-rorists were instructed by their leadership tospeak only to high-level officials. Accordingto hostages that sat close to Ali, he spokewith someone on the telephone and endedthe conversation by saying: ‘I will only talk tothe President.’ His phone rang again fifteento twenty minutes later, but it was not thePresident, it was his aide. To this, Ali imme-diately ended the call.29 Also, efforts toengage Mufti Ruslan Valgatov, religiousleader of North Ossetia’s Muslim minority,with the terrorists were refused. He wasthreatened with death if he tried to approachthe school. In the meantime, the authoritiescompiled their first list of hostages, and pub-licly announced that there were only 120 ofthem.

Around this time, Dr Larisa Mamitovawas treating two of the hostage-takers, whowere shot in the initial takeover by one of thefathers with his pistol. During this interac-tion, Mamitova carefully asked her patientsabout their intentions and goals, and was toldthat the objective of the siege was peace forChechnya and recognition for the fact thatChechen women and children were also suf-fering. Mamitova offered her help in commu-nicating with the authorities, and was sum-moned to the school’s library to meet withthe leader of the group, Ruslan Khuchbarov(a.k.a. ‘Polkovnik’). He pointed to a chairnext to him and started fishing in his pockets,first taking out a drawing of the plan of theschool, then putting it back. Polkovnik even-tually found the piece of paper he was look-

24 Buse, Fichtner, Kaiser, Klussmann, Mayr, and Neef, Op cit., pp 65–101.25 On 21 June 2004, Basayev personally commanded more than 200 of his fighters in the attack on the now formerIngushetian capitol of Nazran. The attackers wore local police uniforms and set up roadblocks at which they stoppedand killed the real police officers who raced to reinforce their colleagues. Nearly 100 people, including several minis-ters died before the fighters withdrew and disappeared in the largest Chechen operation since 1999.26 Testimony of Vitalii Zangionov in the Nur-Pashi Kulayev trial, 26 January 2006.27 There is no public record of the actual talks, but hostages who sat in Ali’s proximity agree on the responses he pro-vided. 28 This conversation was heard by several hostages sitting in Ali’s proximity.29 ‘Chief Beslan gunman described’, Caucasian Knot, 4 August 2005.


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ing for – it was a list of telephone numbers.He then gave Mamitova another piece ofpaper and started dictating a message whichshe took down:

‘8-928-738-33-374 [telephone number used byPolkovnik]We want negotiations with President of the RepublicDzhosokhov, Zaizikov, President of Ingushetia andRoshal, children’s doctor. If they kill any one of us, wewill shoot fifty people to pieces. If they injure any oneof us, we will kill twenty people. If they kill five of us,we will blow everything up. If they turn off the lights,even for a minute, we will shoot ten people to pieces.’

Mamitova was then placed under a sniper’scrosshairs and sent outside to hand overthe note. Shortly thereafter, AlsanbekAslachanov, Putin’s advisor on Chechnya,called the school. According to him, he said:‘I’m getting ready to leave. There are thingsfor us to discuss. Are you ready to talk tome?’ He was greeted with an angry reply:‘Why do you lie all the time?! We have over1,200 people here, 70 per cent of them chil-dren. People have been killed already andyou are talking about “things to discuss?” Ifyou go on like this, we will start shootingthem and then you’ll see how serious thingsare.’30

At the start, the terrorists selected twogroups of men and led them outside thegym. One group was tasked to barricadewindows, while the other was forced to kneelin the corridor with their hands behind theirbacks facing the wall. The group barricadingwindows never returned. Once finished, theywere led into a classroom on the secondfloor, lined up against the wall and then shot,their bodies later thrown out of the window.

As the incident progressed, tensionsmounted even further. In the afternoon, thehostages overheard an argument betweenthe terrorists and their leader, in which the

female attackers in particular expressed dis-pleasure in holding children hostage. Around1600, one of the suicide bombers detonated– killing five or six of the men lined up in thehallway and injuring many more. The causeof the detonation is still a point of con-tention. According to one version, thewoman was detonated remotely byPolkovnik because of her disobedience. But,since the bomber detonated in a doorway,also killing the other suicide bomber andanother terrorist in the process, it seemsmore likely that the detonation was an acci-dent.31 The dead hostages were carriedupstairs and the injured were ordered to jointhem. Once in the classroom, a terroristsprayed the injured men with gunfire, andtheir dead bodies were thrown out of thewindow. At this point, the number of deadhostages had already reached twenty-one.

In the meantime, negotiations contin-ued as Mikhail Gutseriev – the former speak-er of the Russian State Duma and Presidentof the ‘Rusneft’ oil company – called theschool, claiming to have been empowered byPutin himself to lead the negotiations. Afteran attempt to speak Ingush, Gutseriev wasrebuffed and instructed to speak only inRussian. His suggestion for a Muslim cleric toenter into negotiations was allegedly reject-ed, as was the offer to exchange the childrenfor the release of the thirty-one terroristsarrested in the Nazran raid.32 According tothe now former President of Ossetia,Aleksandr Dzhosokhov, a deal had almostbeen reached, but at the last moment, theterrorists backed out. When Gutseriev askedabout specific demands, Sheikhu suggestedthat they be handed over in writing. In thiscontext, the name of Ruslan Aushev, formerIngushetian President and a highly respected

30 Aslanbek Aslakhanov interviewed in Kevin Sim’s documentary, ‘Beslan: Siege of School Number One’, Wide Angle,2005.31 Further, the other terrorists prayed immediately afterwards by the bodies of their dead colleagues, which is some-thing that would not happen if they were considered traitors.32 This incident is discussed in more detail in Part Four.

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figure in the Caucasus, reportedly came upfor the first time.33

After 1900 another man demanded bythe terrorists for negotiations, Dr LeonidRoshal, claims to have called the school.Never requested to do so by the authorities,he flew to Beslan on his own initiative afterbeing informed of the situation by journal-ists. Once he reached the school, Roshalcalled the terrorists expressing his readinessto enter with water and medicines. ‘If youcome within thirty metres, you’ll get a bullet’came the reply. In a strictly one-sided discus-sion, the threat was made that hostageswould be executed in the event the telephonelines were cut off; or if the lines were operating but no one answered when the terrorists called; or if soldiers were spotted outside; or if the lights were turned off.Sheikhu further instructed Roshal that hecould only enter the school if he wereaccompanied by the other three mendemanded earlier; if he approached alone hewould be shot.

Day 2 In the early morning of 2 September,Mamitova overheard a radio broadcastreporting that only 354 hostages were heldinside the school, and that the telephonenumber provided by the terrorists was non-operational. She asked to see Polkovnik andinformed him of the report. ‘No one needsyou so no one calls. They are still reportingthat you are 354 people in total. Perhaps weshould leave 354 of you and kill the rest,’ wasthe reply. He also added, ‘How can the phonenot be working when I am still talking topeople on this?’ Nonetheless, he took anoth-er handset and called the first phone. The calldid not go through. Mamitova then suggest-ed sending another note with a new tele-

phone number. Polkovnik tore a piece ofpaper from a notebook and handed it toMamitova. ‘Write again,’ he said and dictatedsome other telephone numbers. In the mid-dle of dictating, he became angry, took thepiece of paper from her, and threw it out. Hegave her another one and dictated again:‘Our nerves are at a breaking point . . .’

That same morning, the authoritiesattempted a bold move by summoning LuisaKodzoyeva – the wife of one of the allegedterrorists – to the school, to try to convinceher husband to release the children. Perhapsmore importantly, the authorities were send-ing a message that the terrorists’ familymembers could also be found and punished.In a videotape made by the authorities, a partof which was later shown on television,Luisa stated: ‘If you are there, let the childrengo. Help the children; after all, you have fiveof your own.’ However, the first sentence inher statement was not aired: ‘Iznaur, I knowthat you’re not there . . . They forced me.’34

There was no response.35

Inside the school, the terrorists werebecoming increasingly angry and frustrated,mainly due to the repeated Governmentclaims made in the media that the number ofhostages was 354, and that the hostage-takershad not presented any demands. Thehostage-takers saw this as a deliberateattempt to obstruct negotiations, and to jus-tify the launching of an armed assault on theschool. The downplaying of the number ofhostages was, they believed, supposed to aidthe authorities in covering up the number ofthe victims in the event of a rescue.Infuriated, around noon the terrorists calledfor a ‘dry strike’ and stopped giving thehostages water. From this point on, thehostages began to suffer acutely from thelack of food, water and deteriorating condi-tions inside. Some of the hostages even

33 Buse, Fichtner, Kaiser, Klussmann, Mayr, and Neef, Op cit., pp 65–101.34 Ibid., pp 65–101.35 Iznaur Kodzoyev would later be killed, not in Beslan in September 2004, but instead, in his native village of Al’tievoin April 2005. This suggests that either Kodzoyev was either not actually present in the school, or that he got away.


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began to drink their own urine to quenchtheir thirst.

Just before 1400, the terrorists’ moodsuddenly changed. They became visiblyhappy, hugging each other as if they had notseen each other in ages. From the top floor,they announced that the ‘big person’ wascoming in for the negotiations. Near thebathroom, where all the nursing motherswere directed on the first day with theirbabies, one of the lead terrorists, VladimirKhodov, offered a hint: ‘If they let him comein, maybe we will let the breast-feeding chil-dren out.’36 This ‘big person’ turned out to beRuslan Aushev, admired General of theAfghan war and former Ingush President.From Khodov’s comment, it seems that theterrorists were not sure until the lastmoment whether he would be permitted toenter. Aushev asked to see the hostages, so hewas led to the window on the second floorfrom where he was shown the corpses of thetwenty-one dead men executed on day one.Afterwards, Aushev and Polkovnik held a dis-cussion in the teachers’ room. They spokeabout evacuating the infant children and col-lecting the bodies of those men he had justseen.37 At the end of the meeting, Aushevwas given a handwritten note dated 30August 2004 addressed to ‘President Putinfrom Allah’s slave Shamil Basayev’. He wasasked to read the message out loud to makesure everything was clear:38

Vladimir Putin, you were not the one to start the war,but you could be the one to end it - that is, if you findthe courage and resolve to act like de Gaulle. We areoffering you peace on a mutually beneficial basis inline with the principle of ‘independence for security’.We can guarantee that if you withdraw the troops andrecognize Chechen independence, then we will notstrike any political, military or economic deals withanyone against Russia; we will not have any foreignmilitary bases, even temporary ones; we will not sup-

port or finance groups fighting the RussianFederation; we will join the Commonwealth ofIndependent States; we will stay in the rouble zone; wecould sign the Collective Security Treaty, although wewould prefer the status of a neutral state; we can guar-antee that all Russian Muslims will refrain fromarmed methods of struggle against the RussianFederation for at least ten to fifteen years on conditionthat freedom of religion be respected . . . The Chechennation is involved in the national liberation strugglefor its freedom and independence and for its preserva-tion. It is not fighting to humiliate Russia or destroyit. As a free nation, we are interested in a strong neigh-bour. We are offering you peace and the choice is yours.

The terrorists set a deadline for the Kremlinto respond by the morning of 4 September.39

Aushev promised to hand over the letter, andasked for the release of young infants. ‘Youalso have children, don’t you?’ he said.40

Khuchbarov did, and so released the nursingmothers along with one baby each, some ofthem had to leave their other childrenbehind. After leaving the school with thetwenty-six released hostages, Aushev imme-diately transmitted the text of a letter to theKremlin with an urgent plea for negotiations.In addition, a list of specific demands wasalso handed over in writing. These demandswere never made public, but available evi-dence suggests that the list corresponded tothe one later provided by Basayev himself: – We demand that the war in Chechnya be

stopped immediately and that the with-drawal of forces be carried out;

– We insist that Putin immediately resignsfrom his post as President of the RussianFederation; and

– We insist that all hostages, be it children oradults, go on hunger strike in support ofour demands.

Also, following conditions were reportedlyset: – We will give water to everyone provided

36 Chivers, Op cit.37 ‘Inquiry Finds Chechen Separatist Leader Was Given Chance To Intervene at Beslan’, RIA, 3 March 2005.38 Interview with Ruslan Aushev, Moscow, November 2005.39 Plater-Zyberk, Op cit.40 Aushev Interview, Op cit.

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Putin immediately stops the war, sends allhis troops to the barracks and begins thewithdrawal of his troops;

– We will give food to everyone providedPutin begins the actual withdrawal of histroops;

– We will release children under the age of tenas soon as they start withdrawing thetroops from the mountains;

– We will set others free after they completethe withdrawal of the troops; and

– If Putin submits a letter of resignation, wewill release all the children and go back toChechnya.

In the evening, Aslakhanov called the schoolagain. The conversation was very structuredand to the point. The terrorists stated hecould only come to Beslan to negotiate ifPutin granted him the authority to do so.Aslakhanov answered affirmatively andpointed out that ‘some demands are unrealis-tic and you know it. Some we will fulfill. I’lltalk to the President.’ Sheikhu replied: ‘If youdo, tomorrow at 3pm, we’ll hold an officialmeeting.’ According to his own account,Aslakhanov then spoke to President Putin,who allegedly stated that ‘the children’s livesmust be saved at all costs. Agree to every-thing. But the first two demands cannot bemet.’41 This is an extremely interesting pointbecause if Aslakhanov did indeed talk aboutthe possibility of satisfying some of the ter-rorists’ demands, it clearly contradicts theofficial claim that no demands were made.Similarly, Putin’s comment about the unac-ceptable nature of the ‘first two demands’confirms their existence. It is not clear, how-ever, what the President meant by ‘agree toeverything’. If the first two demands – with-drawing troops from Chechnya and his ownresignation – were unacceptable, then therewas nothing else to agree to but the demandthat hostages go on a hunger strike. So whilethe statement ‘agree to everything but the

first two demands’ by itself may be interpret-ed as evidence of the Russian leader’s willing-ness to offer almost any concession in orderto save the lives of the hostages, in the con-text of the actual list of demands, it translat-ed into agreeing to absolutely nothing.

Another noteworthy point is the dis-crepancy between the officials’ claims interms of the course of the negotiations, andthe desperate reactions of the terroristsinside. For instance, while Aslakhanov’s state-ment seems to suggest that frantic negotia-tions were going on, inside the school the ter-rorists complained to the hostages thatnobody wanted to speak with them. Forinstance, Polkovnik even sought outMamitova and told her that if there were anymembers of Parliament or other politiciansthat she knew, she should call them.Mamitova replied that she did not know any-one, but pleaded to try calling her colleaguesat the emergency room, perhaps they couldhelp. After being allowed to call and explainthe conditions inside, she offered the womanshe spoke with the opportunity to come tothe school and see for herself. Polkovnik set adeadline of ten minutes and offered a guar-antee of safety, but no one ever appeared.Mamitova then remembered hearing fromsomeone in the gym that the children of theNorth Ossetian Parliament speakerMamsurov were also among the hostages.Through Lydia Tsaliyeva, the school’s head-mistress, the kids were identified and sum-moned to the teachers’ room. Before theyleft the gym, Ali took aside the boy, huggedhim and kissed him on the head. ‘Don’tworry. Nothing bad is going to happen toyou. We just need you to help us jumpstartthe negotiations. Talk with your daddy andtell him what’s going on.’42

When Mamitova and the children finally managed to get through to Mamsurov,he replied: ‘The Government has ordered meto leave my parental emotions at home.’

41 Aslanbek Aslakhanov interview, Op cit.42 Interview with Larisa Kudzyeva, Beslan, November 2005.


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Mamitova then pleaded for Mamsurov tocontact Ossetian President Dzhosokhov andask him to call the school within the next tenminutes. Mamsurov agreed. Ten long min-utes passed by without anyone calling.Visibly upset, Polkovnik then turned on theTV. The Government media were still report-ing that there were only 354 hostages, and DrRoshal was claiming that the children werenot in immediate danger, and that they couldsurvive eight or nine days without water.The TV station also said that Aushev led outtwenty-six mothers and children. To this,Polkovnik exploded: ‘We released just a cou-ple of people and you’re already claimingtwenty-six! And then you’ll say forty more,seventy more! We’re not going to releaseanother person again!’ Polkovnik then sentMamitova and the children back to the gym.‘Go, nobody needs you,’43 he said.

In the evening, Ali came into the gymvisibly distressed. When asked by hostageLarisa Kudzyeva what had happened, hereplied: ‘I don’t want to lift my foot off thetrigger,44 but I’m forced to do it. They don’twant to talk. The answer is no. They told methat Russia will never talk to terrorists. Thatthe problem does not exist.’ When she askedwhat that meant, Ali replied: ‘I don’t knowwhat that means. They told me I have a dayand a half to sort it out.’ Kudzyeva coun-tered: ‘That can’t be. Maybe you didn’tunderstand.’ ‘No, I understood. I understoodeverything.’45

The authorities have a different story.According to official sources, Roshal calledthe terrorists in the evening of day two andoffered them free passage. The offer was,

allegedly, bluntly refused. And yet, officialsapparently cleared the way for the terroriststo leave by ordering a group of policemen tomove their post back and not to interferewith any passing terrorists. According to oneof these policemen, two terrorists laterwalked out of the building and surveyed thecountryside, and then they shouted, ‘AllahuAkbar’, shot into the air and retreated back tothe school.46

In the Command Centre, several ideaswere reportedly being discussed, includingthe signing of a fake decree about pullingtroops from Chechnya. But the idea wasquickly abandoned as it was assumed the terrorists would need to see more evidenceof a pull-out on TV, which would be a pointof no return.47 Aushev also suggested engag-ing Aslan Maskhadov, the last electedPresident of the separatist Government, intonegotiations. Maskhadov had publicly con-demned the attack and this offered a glimpseof hope. On the other hand, the Kremlin hadimplicated Maskhadov in previous acts ofterrorism, and so providing him an opportu-nity to appear as a saviour by involving himin this crucial role was hardly going to beacceptable to the Kremlin. Nevertheless,both Dzhosokhov and Aushev contactedMaskhadov’s envoy, Zakayev, in London.48

The reply was that Maskhadov was ready toassume the negotiating role, but asked for aguarantee that he would be provided unhin-dered access to the school and that theRussians would not kill him. By midnight, atthe civilian command centre,49 an agreementwas allegedly drafted, with key componentscentering on negotiations between Russian

43 Ibid.44 The terrorists had a book that was rigged as a switch to the explosive daisy chain. One terrorist always had his footon this book. If he lifted the foot, detonation would occur. 45 Kudzyeva Interview, Op cit.46 Buse, Fichtner, Kaiser, Klussmann, Mayr, and Neef, Op cit., pp 65–101.47 Aleksandr XINWTEJN% ‘Rab Allaxa Basaev ego prevosxoditel;stvu Putinu . . .’ MoskovskijKomsomolec, 11 September 2004.48 According to Zakayev, the very first person to contact him was the journalist, Anna Politkovskaya.49 A chaotic situation existed in which several different command centers were established, each runningindependently.

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leaders and Maskhadov, a plan for Chechenautonomy, and a gradual troop withdrawal.50

Day 3

The morning of 3 September brought someoptimistic news: Maskhadov had sent a mes-sage through Zakayev confirming that hewas ready to fly to Beslan to negotiate. Thelocal authorities responded by announcingthat they needed only two hours to organizehis safe passage and travel arrangements.51

Around noon, Ossetian Presidentialspokesman, Lev Dzugayev told the journal-ists: ‘Important new faces are about to enterthe negotiation process, they will arrivesoon.’ In addition, he also announced thatthis step had the full support of the Kremlinand that an agreement had also been madewith the terrorists to collect the bodies of thehostages killed on day one. Only an hourafter this announcement was made, thestorming started, leading some sources tospeculate that the explosions that triggeredthe mayhem were no accident, and that theirpurpose was to deny Maskhadov the chanceto come in and save the day.52 The Federalauthorities in turn, categorically deniedMaskhadov’s willingness to come to Beslanto negotiate.53 Further, after Beslan, theyaccused him of actually planning theattack and put a $10 million bounty on hishead.54

The small glimpse of optimism thatwas present outside the school followingDzugayev’s announcement was not sharedby the people inside the gym. Conditionswere rapidly deteriorating with at least twochildren on the verge of death by dehydra-tion. The overall feeling shared by everyone

in the school was that something must hap-pen soon; the hostages were becomingincreasingly uncontrollable, and the terror-ists knew that based on past experience anassault would start before long. Somehostages noticed that the number of terror-ists had gotten smaller overnight, with somespecific individuals nowhere to be seen.55

The desperation of the remaining terroristswas evident. They were acting increasinglyaggressive, became even less responsive tohostages’ anxious pleas for water, and theiranger grew with their inability to settle thehostages down.

Just before 1300, Mamitova was toldthat a lorry would be coming to collect thebodies of the dead hostages. Polkovnik toldher to stand by the window and let the people in the lorry know the condition of thechildren. He wanted her to tell them the children were very ill and that, for three days,the terrorists had not killed anyone. At 1302,the lorry approached and several shots werefired. Almost simultaneously, the first explo-sion inside the school ensued, followed by alarge explosion exactly twenty-two secondslater. Shortly thereafter, chaos erupted.According to the sole captured terrorist Nur-Pasha Kulayev’s court testimony, Polkovnikran into the gym following the first twoexplosions and screamed that a sniper hadtaken out the man who was standing on thebook rigged as a detonator to the bombs. Atthe same time, he was speaking to someoneon his mobile and yelled, ‘What have youdone, you want to storm? Do you know howmany children there are? You lied to us. Youbear responsibility for everything.’ Gutserievon the other side said: ‘But there’s noassault!’ Polovnik replied: ‘That’s it. We’reblowing up’. After that he smashed the

50 Buse, Fichtner, Kaiser, Klussmann, Mayr, and Neef, Op cit., pp 65-101.51 Interview with Israil Totoonti, Vladikavkaz, November 2005.52 ‘New Details Emerge on Maschadov’s Bit to Mediate in Beslan’, Chechnya Weekly, Volume VII, Issue 1, 5 January2006.53 ‘Russia: Beslan Inquiry Chief Says Maskhadov Missed Chance To Be True Leader’, Mayak Radio, 2 April 2005.54 Maschadov was then killed on 8 March 2005 in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt, near Grozny.55 This included Ali.


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phone and ordered his men to shoot every-one. ‘It doesn’t matter, they will take pity onno one.’56

By this point, the firefight had becomeirreversible. At 1813, one final contact was

made with the hostage-takers. ‘It’s all yourfault. Say “hi” to your Putin!’ Around 0200,more than twelve hours since the initialexplosions, the last shots were fired.

56 Kulayev trial testimony, Op cit.

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This section of the report will analyze thepotential of negotiations as the best possibletool for the resolution of the incident. Firstly,the motivations and strategic calculus of theattackers will be examined. What were theytrying to achieve? What was the desired out-come? What was their best alternative to anegotiated agreement (BATNA)?57 Withoutaddressing these questions, it is impossible todesign an appropriate negotiation strategy.Secondly, a commonly-used analytical frame-work for assessing the negotiability ofhostage incidents will be used to identify thenegative indicators of volatility, as well as the comparatively positive indicators of de-escalation that were present. Simultaneously,the weaknesses of a mechanical applicationof this framework to Beslan-style incidentswill be identified. And finally, this section willanalyze the successes and missed opportuni-ties in the handling of the Beslan incident inorder to draw lessons for the resolution ofsimilar crises in the future.

Goals of the AttackTo gain some insight into the terrorists’ cal-culations prior to launching the Beslan oper-ation, their selection of target, tactics usedand overall strategy must be assessed.

The target was indeed striking, and itwas clearly designed to raise the stakes. InDubrovka, the Russian leadership did not shyaway from storming a theatre full of

hostages in the middle of Moscow, killing129 people in the process. Taking hundredsof schoolchildren hostage would introduceeven greater decision-making dilemmas andgreater public pressure not to storm theschool, leaving the Kremlin with few optionsbut to negotiate. In Basayev’s own words,Moscow or St Petersburg would have beenmore attractive locations for the operation,and he allegedly even considered attackingthe two locations at once. However, due tooperational and financial limitations, a targetsubstitute had to be made. Ossetia providedthe ideal candidate because ‘it is Russia’s fortpost in the North Caucasus, and all badthings that come to [Chechens] come fromthe territory of Ossetia, with the silent con-sent of its population.’58 The selection ofBeslan in particular made sense, as theSchool Number One was one of the largestin the region and where even the Ossetianelite sent their children.59

The tactic used in the attacks was also striking. Obviously, there was the idea of taking hostages as a means of creating a‘good’, which could then be used to ‘trade’for political concessions. As mentionedabove, taking a large number of childrenhostage significantly raises the stakes.Fortifying the location, placing a large num-ber of explosive devices throughout theschool, booby trapping possible entrancesand monitoring them with remote controlsurveillance cameras,60 deployment of

57 The purpose of a BATNA is to formulate the likely outcome of the situation should negotiations fail. This shouldbe done beforehand in order to determine whether it is advisable to even start negotiating. During the negotiations,it is desirable to strengthen one’s own BATNA, while making the counterpart’s BATNA appear as weak as possible.58 Basayev Interview for Channel 4 News, 4 February 2005.59 According to Senator Alexander Torshin who heads the Federal Investigative Committee, the terrorists had abackup school that would have been easier to attack than Beslan in the village of Nesterovskaya in Ingushetia since itwas located on a road where the terrorists would not have had to travel from Ingushetia across checkpoints.60 Plater-Zyberk, Op cit.

Chapter 3: The Failure of Negotiations


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snipers in strategic positions, use of gasmasks and sentry dogs in order to prevent theuse of anesthetic gas, and other protectivemeasures taken, were designed to overtlyminimize the perceived chances of a rescueoperation success. Few hostage crises in his-tory have presented the response teams withsuch a formidable adversary. The apparentsuicidal tactic selected for the operation wasalso significant. First of all, the repeatedexpression of determination to die duringthe incident was aimed at denying the coun-terpart’s threat-making capacity: in essence,the proclamation of the desire to die weak-ens the deterrent value of threats by theGovernment to resolve the situation forceful-ly.61 Further, the seeming irrationality of sui-cidal operations is useful in attracting exten-sive media coverage. In turn, that coveragemay prompt popular, even global interest inunderstanding and investigating the motiva-tions behind such an act. As a consequence,the group’s cause might be perceived as just,as people question how their plight – andthat of the constituency they represent –could be so humiliating and unacceptablethat for them death is preferable to life undersuch conditions. This is especially true incases where the suicide attackers includewomen, as has frequently been the case inChechen operations. This was apparently theelement that the terrorists were trying tocapitalize on in Beslan as well. On numerousoccasions they would engage the hostageswith questions like: ‘You know why ourwomen sacrifice themselves like that?’ or ‘Doyou think our women blow themselves upbecause they like it?’ In addition, it is alsoclear that featuring images of female suicidebombers in their video footage from the sitewas particularly important for public rela-tions purposes; after the original twobombers died on day one of the siege, one of

the terrorists approached Larisa Kudzyevawith an offer to release her children if sheagreed to put on the hijab and a suicide belt.62

Overall, the goals of the operation weremultiple. Basayev’s success in Budyonnovskhad convinced him that large scale hostage-takings can be instrumentally successful inforcing the Russians to the negotiating table.At the same time, he also learnt from pastincidents that the Russian leadership canalways be expected to launch a rescue opera-tion – typically, as noted earlier, around theend of day three of the crisis – and that theseactions produce on average more than 130deaths. In light of these experiences,Basayev’s explanation of the goals of Beslanwas logical: ‘We came there not to kill peoplebut to stop the war, and if it works out thatway, to force the Russian leadership to kill itsown civilians, if only through this to forcethe lying and vain world to understand whatis really going on, to lay bare our wound andpain, because people don’t see what is hap-pening in Chechnya. They see it only whenhuge actions like this one occur on the terri-tory of Russia itself.’63 From a negotiationperspective, this logic is highly troublesome,as Basayev has been able to convert a barri-cade hostage scenario that, under normal cir-cumstances, would not be so favourable tothe hostage-takers, into a ‘win-win’ situation.The logic was simple: If the Russians satisfythe demands, Basayev wins. If the Russiansstorm the building and a large number ofhostages die, he also wins. Finally, the desire,or at least the acceptability of dying a mar-tyr’s death on behalf of hostage-takers thenerases any possible downsides.

There was yet another strategic goalthat would be fulfilled in Beslan regardless ofthe outcome of the incident: that was theprovocation of violent retaliations by the pre-dominantly Orthodox Christian Ossetians

61 Zartman, William, ‘Negotiating Effectively With Terrorists’ in Barry Rubin, ed., The Politics of Counterterrorism(Washington, D.C.: The Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, 1990).62 Interview with Larisa Kudzyeva, Beslan, November 2005.63 Basayev Interview for Channel 4 News, 4 February 2005.

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against the Muslim Ingush minority in theprovince.64 This would, in turn, trigger alarge-scale Christian-Muslim confrontationin the Caucasus, not only taking the pressureoff Chechnya, but also creating a nightmarescenario for Moscow.65 In light of this aim,and in consideration of Basayev’s long-termstrategic goal of expanding the Chechen con-flict throughout the region, attacking inOssetia with a team featuring a majority ofIngush attackers was a logical strategicchoice, since more than 600 people hadalready died in ethnic clashes between bothgroups in 1992.66 The resurrection of suchhistorical conflicts may only need gentle per-suasion. Although official versions deny this,an armed group of Ossetians heading toIngushetia to avenge Beslan was actuallystopped by Federal troops at the Nazrancheckpoint shortly after the incident.67 SinceBeslan, the tensions between the two ethnicgroups have followed an escalatory pattern.

Besides understanding the strategic cal-culus of the masterminds of the operation, itis also important to examine the profiles andbackgrounds of the executors. It is they,essentially, who will make the final decisionin terms of executing hostages, dying, sur-rendering or taking up an offer of free pas-sage. And although ideology-driven hostageincidents typically feature little independentdecision-making on behalf of the executors,based on analysis of Basayev’s claim ofresponsibility, it seems that this element waspresent at Beslan, as the demand to releasethe imprisoned attackers from the Nazranraid appears to have been at the executors’own initiative.68 Understanding the personal-ity and group dynamics of the hostage- taking team inside the school is therefore

vital to designing a suitable negotiation strat-egy.

This report is not the appropriateforum to provide in-depth biographies ofeach of the Beslan terrorists, which by them-selves would provide enough material for aseparate book. As a result, only a basicoverview can be given. The official numberof terrorists was thirty-two – two of themwere women – although hostages claim theactual number was much higher, possibly asmany as fifty or seventy.69 Published reports,interviews with investigators, hostages andthe terrorists’ family members reveal the fol-lowing detail: some of the terrorists had along history of fighting in the separatiststruggle, others were violent criminals whoescaped punishment in the lawless regions ofChechnya or Ingushetia, only later to join therebels. Some were fanatical Islamists, othersseem to have been driven by more personalgrievances and revenge, whilst one was anOrthodox Christian, who converted to Islamunder the influence of his brother. Most ofthe terrorists had some family members,who were either killed or kidnapped and tor-tured by the Russians in Chechnya andIngushetia. Some had a history of conduct-ing terrorist attacks against civilians, othershad previously only killed soldiers. Theirroles in the crisis were apparently different:while some attackers were clearly destinedfor sacrifice, others were almost certainlymeant to survive. Some held important posi-tions in Basayev’s Riyadus-Salikhin SuicideFighters Battalion (RAS) and participated inthe planning of the operation, others wereonly marginal players, who did not haveadvance knowledge of their target – a factwhich led to the argument among the terror-

64 Nur Pasha Kulayev interviewed on Russian NTV station, 4 September 2004.65 Šéf teroristu z Beslanu uniká, tvrdí tisk. Idnes, 10 September 2004.66 Nivat, Anne, Chienne De Guerre, (New York: Public Affairs, 2001) p. 92.67 Interviews with local residents, Beslan and Nazran, November 2006.68 Plater-Zyberk, Op cit.69 The official number is the result of thirty-one bodies being found with one terrorist being captured alive. Thehostages, however, report seeing between fifty and seventy terrorists, suggesting that some were able to escape. Inaddition, only seventeen of the bodies were positively identified, and consequently, only a limited profiling sample isavailable.


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ists about the morality of taking childrenhostage.70 This overall diversity in back-ground, prior experience, rank, division oflabour and differing fates brings an importantelement into the analysis of negotiationoptions and strategies. Did the schisms insidethe group perhaps provide an opportunityfor the negotiators to drive a wedge betweenthe hostage-takers?

Assessment of VolatilityFrom the perspective of the accepted crisisnegotiation framework, it was clear from thebeginning that resolving the Beslan crisispeacefully would be incredibly difficult. Infact, as mentioned in the introduction, tradi-tional analytical checklists would placeBeslan into the category of non-negotiableincidents, requiring a tactical resolution.However, upon closer inspection, it becomesapparent that there were a number ofdynamics present in the crisis that made theapplicability of the commonly-used genericincident assessment forms obsolete. Somekey indicators of volatility are identifiedbelow.

The first indicator of volatility evidentwas the careful planning and premeditatednature of the attack. Deliberate hostagecrises are naturally more difficult to negoti-ate, and the process is likely to be significant-ly longer in duration than in the case of spon-taneous hostage incidents, like a surprisepolice intervention during a bank robbery ora domestic violence situation. Quite simply, ifthe hostage-takers are mentally and physical-ly prepared to be in the given situation, the lesslikely they are to start second guessing theirdecision to take hostages. This, however,does not mean that we should automatically

conclude that this shift will not take place. Itonly means that changing the terrorists’expectations and resolve will need muchmore time than is the case in most otherhostage incidents. Further, while the Beslanterrorists did bring with them vitamin sup-plements and rations for at least three days,not everyone was comfortable with the ideaof taking children hostage. This providedsome window of opportunity for planting aseed of doubt in the minds of at least someterrorists.

Secondly, the presence of multiple per-petrators available to handle the negotiationsmade the situation even more unpredictable:building rapport with hostage-takers is muchmore challenging if they are under directpressure from their peers and if they caneffectively negate the formation of a person-al relationship with the negotiator by simplyswitching representatives. This was also thecase in Beslan, where the negotiations werehandled by at least two different terrorists.Further, they also cleverly employed the‘deferment of authority’ principle, in whichthe person who speaks is never the one whocan make the final decision. This is one ofthe principles that is employed by hostagenegotiation teams, and which is designed toallow the negotiator never to fully commit toany deals, without consulting his superior.The negotiator can then deny an agreementpreviously reached without losing face bypointing to the decision-maker as the oneresponsible for the change of heart. Thismakes negotiations more difficult than whenthe decision-maker is confronted directly.Another reason why the presence of grouphostage-takers is considered an indicator ofvolatility is that due to the psychologicalprocess known as ‘groupthink’,71 group

70 Blinova, Yekaterina and Trofimov, Anton, ‘Beslan Hostage-takers May Have Included Arrested Terrorist, BasayevLink Likely’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 8 September 2004.71 Groupthink is a decision-making process used to explain why groups sometimes make decisions that are moreradical than the sum of all individual opinions within the group. An excellent description and application of some ofthe groupthink processes to the terrorism context can be found in Albert Bandura, ‘Mechanisms of MoralDisengagement,’ in Walter Reich, editor, Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind,Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 1998, 2nd edition pp 161–191.

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hostage-takers in general tend to be moredecisive than individuals when it comes tokilling hostages.

Another volatile element of the crisiswas the fact that the hostage-takers werewell-armed and heavily brutalized. Securityprecautions taken by the militants made anassault on the school virtually impossiblewithout a significant loss of life, and theruthless history of a number of these terror-ists made their claims of being prepared tosummarily execute the hostages believable.Further, the fact that hostages died in the ini-tial takeover was also highly negative.Hostage deaths in the early stages usuallycomplicate subsequent negotiation efforts bytarnishing the hostage-takers’ ‘clean record’.If hostage-takers maintain a ‘clean record’,negotiators can facilitate it to secure a surren-der or right of free passage in the final stagesof an incident. On the other hand, ample evi-dence exists that death of hostages through-out terrorist hostage-taking incidents doesnot automatically create an insurmountablebarrier to a negotiated agreement in this con-text. Still, decision-makers naturally becomeless amendable to pursuing negotiationsonce hostages have been killed, and there aregreater legal and public opinion obstacles toletting the terrorists leave freely as well,thereby complicating negotiation efforts.

Another important factor was that thestronger male hostages were separated out ofthe group and transferred to another loca-tion. This filtering process not only signaledthe anticipation of a tactical assault – holdinghostages at different locations makes anassault more difficult, as multiple tacticalteams must attack all locations simultaneous-ly in order to limit the risk to hostages held atother locations – but it also allowed for aquick ‘discriminate’ execution of hostages ifit became necessary to pressure the authori-ties. The slaying of these men, who were per-ceived not only as a dangerous threat to thehostage-takers due to their physical ability tooverpower but also as morally ‘involved’ inthe violence in Chechnya and Ingushetia,

would have been psychologically easier andalso less politically dangerous for the terror-ists than killing women and children.Tragically, this proved to be the case duringthe afternoon of day one, when the terroristsdid in fact execute several men to demon-strate the seriousness of their threats. Later,additional people died in the suicide blast,and the ones injured were also finished offand thrown out of the window. Thisextremely bold measure, rarely seen in pasthostage crises, constitutes one of the mostimportant dilemmas for the future.

The current modus operandi of crisisresponse teams adheres to the principle thatuntil hostages start dying, negotiations takepriority. Once hostages start being executed,the ‘last resort option’ of a full-scale rescueoperation is employed. But as noted earlier,in cases like Beslan, the rescue operation onlyhas a miniscule probability of success.Several questions arise: Is it better to riskmore deaths resulting from the rescue, or tocontinue negotiations? Does the execution ofseveral hostages constitute a sure sign ofabsolute non-negotiability? Because Beslan-type incidents have been so rare, we can onlyspeculate. Similarly, could the absence ofexecutions of women and children be inter-preted as a positive sign of possible restraintin terms of indiscriminate executions on behalfof the terrorists? What does the absence ofexecutions on days two and three tell usabout the prospects of an eventual successfulnegotiated settlement? These questions areby no means meant to suggest a moral rela-tivity on the issue, or to imply that lives ofmale hostages are less important than thoseof women and children. But on utilitariangrounds, decision-makers need to ask them-selves: which approach can result in thedeaths of fewer people? A storming of thelocation or further negotiations? All of thesequestions need to be analyzed and the basisupon which the current hostage rescue‘cookbooks’ rest needs to be re-evaluated.

The third possible volatile element wasthe absence of change in the terrorists’


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demands over time. In ‘negotiable incidents’,hostage-takers typically start ‘bidding’ highbut reduce their demands as the incident pro-gresses and as their exhaustion induces aregression to higher-order needs, such ashunger, thirst and sleep. If such a processdoes not occur over a growing period oftime, the contemporary paradigm suggeststhat the chances of a negotiated solutiondecrease considerably.72 However, this para-digm is again based on past experience innon-terrorist hostage incidents, where ideol-ogy or religion is not involved, and wheremany of the demands made are not thoughtout beforehand. In such cases, it is not sur-prising that hostage-takers modify theirdemands over time. With terrorist hostage-takers, who have received a clear set ofdemands from their leaders and who lockthemselves in their position by stating theirdemands publicly, this process cannot beexpected to occur on the same timeline asnon-terrorist incidents: the one thing image-conscious terrorists fear the most is the per-ception of failure. Also, the presence of mul-tiple hostage-takers in cases like Beslan pro-longs this process significantly as thehostage-takers not only have the option ofresting some of their crew by working inshifts, but they are also able to feed from theenergy and determination of their col-leagues. As a result of these factors, in com-bination with the lack of sufficient experi-ence and data on terrorist hostage takings àla Beslan, we simply do not know if andwhen a change in the hostage-takers’demand can be expected to occur. Implicitly,we should not tie ourselves down to specifictime horizons and limit our options based onthis indictor alone.

Another potentially volatile elementpresent at Beslan was the alleged use of psy-chotropic substances by the hostage-takers.In general, the presence of alcohol or drugsmakes a hostage situation less predictable,sometimes giving the hostage-takers the‘courage’ to resort to more radical measuresthan they normally would. This is one of thereasons why providing drugs or alcohol tohostage-takers is considered a ‘non-nego-tiable demand’. Following the autopsies ofthe killed Beslan terrorists, investigatorsclaimed twenty-one of the thirty-one gun-men had heroin or morphine in their blood-streams. Another six allegedly used lightdrugs ranging from codeine to marijuana.73

According to local prosecutor NikolaiShepel, tests revealed levels exceeding lethaldoses of heroin and morphine in most of thethirty-two terrorists, suggesting that theywere drug addicts. Alexander Torshin, whoheads the Federal Investigative Committee,even claimed that the terrorists used somekind of a ‘new generation drug’ that allowedthe terrorists to continue fighting, despitebeing badly wounded and, presumably, ingreat pain.74 However, all of these allegationsare being strongly disputed by the hostages,as well as the North Ossetian ParliamentaryCommission, which in its report stated that‘no traces of strong narcotics were found inthe bodies of the hostage-takers’. In Beslan,the assertion about ‘drug addicts’ has longbeen dismissed as Moscow’s attempt to coverup the failure of the authorities to negoti-ate.75 Fascinatingly, even the Beslan terroristscould predict this development; in one of theconversations with Larisa Mamitova,Polkovnik asked whether she saw any drugaddicts among them. When she shook her

72 Thomas Strentz, 13 Indicators of Volatile Negotiations, Law and Order, 1991.73 Nick Paton Walsh, ‘Mystery still shrouds Beslan six months on : Theories and rumors fuel relatives’ doubt andanger’, The Guardian, 16 February 2005.74 ‘New Drugs Used by Beslan Terrorists Puzzle Russian Experts’, MosNews, 19 October 2004.<http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/19/smoking.shtml>.75 This would not be inconsistent with past cases, as the Kremlin has always attempted to portray Chechen militantsas drug addicts, bandits and alcoholics.

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head, he replied, ‘Remember my words, theywill call us drug addicts . . .’76 Another similar-ly dubious claim had the terrorists brutallyraping young girls inside the school. Thehostages themselves not only vigorouslydenied this story, but described how even thesight of girl’s skin ‘upset’ the gunmen, whodemanded that they remained covered up atall times despite the intense heat.77 Similarly,Khodov, when asked by one of the hostageswhether he was going to rape her replieddefensively: ‘We did not come here for this.We don’t need it. There’s a greater reward forus with Allah. The other stuff is simply notinteresting to us.’78

Yet in other respects, the behaviour ofthe terrorists toward the hostages was unusu-ally brutal. After the terrorists stopped givingthe hostages water on the second day, someof the hostages resorted to drinking theirown urine, vainly seeking relief from the rising temperatures in the packed gym.Despite numerous pleas for water from thehostages, this policy was never changed.Further, at least some of the terrorists clearlydemonstrated that they had no psychologicalobstacles to killing hostages. One of the meninjured during the initial takeover was takenaway and shot through the knees before hisskull was shattered using rifle butts.79 Someof the terrorists even attempted a form ofpsychological torture on the children: theyplaced boxes of chocolate in everyone’s viewto tempt the hungry children, but simultane-ously told them: ‘Who even touches it will beshot’.80 In addition, Khodov would occasion-ally beat some of the older boys with his rifle

butt.81 And while there were no executions ofwomen and children, the overall behaviourof some of the terrorists vis-à-vis thehostages did not conform in any way to theStockholm Syndrome – the mutually positiverelationship that often develops betweenhostages and hostage-takers, which typicallymakes it psychologically more difficult forthe latter to harm or kill the former. Again,in this respect as well, there was no uniformi-ty among the members of the team.Hostages agree that only about five or six ter-rorists behaved especially cruelly, while manyothers were remembered as ‘normal’,‘decent’, or even ‘kind’ and ‘nice’. Many ofthe terrorists secretly gave the hostages waterand chocolate, or at least looked the otherway when they saw some of the hostagesviolating the ground rules. One of themalmost paid for this with his own life when heoffered a bottle of water to hostage MarinaKhubayeva. Another terrorist walked up andshouted at him: ‘Do you want a bullet inyour head?’82 At least two of the terroristseven guarded the children from the hail ofbullets in the final chaos, risking their ownlives in the process. Yet several others optedto shoot at the backs of the children as theyattempted to run away.83 The unfortunatefact was that despite their numerical inferior-ity, the hostage-takers that were the mostbrutal, such as Khodov and Khuchbarov,were the leaders of the group. The absenceof psychological barriers to killing hostageson the part of these men made the situationextremely volatile.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly,

76 John B. Dunlop, ‘Beslan: Russia’s 9/11?’ The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya and The JamestownFoundation, October 2005.77 See for instance, ‘Canticle_of_Deborah: They Knifed Babies, They Raped Girls’, Sunday Mirror, 5 September 2004<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1208007/posts>.78 Interview with Larisa Kudzieva, Beslan, November 2005.79 ibid.80 Interview with Aneta Gadieva, Vladikavkaz, July 2005.81 Mark Franchetti and Matthew Campbell, ‘How a repressed village misfit became the butcher of Beslan’, TheSunday Times, 12 September 2004, <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1257953_1,00.html>.82 ibid.83 Testimony of hostage Svetlana Dzheriyeva at the Kulayev trial.


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the terrorists’ repeatedly declared desire todie and become martyrs suggested a highlevel of volatility. One of the identified pre-conditions of negotiability of hostage inci-dents is the desire on behalf of the hostage-taker to live – if the hostage-takers are indif-ferent to staying alive, it is difficult to makethem focus on personal safety, thereby draw-ing the attention away from their originaldemands. Also, the threat of force posed bythe hostage rescue unit becomes much lesspowerful a bargaining tool, as survival playsno part in the hostage-takers’ calculation ofthe outcome. Under circumstances in whichthe captors see it as their primary objective tokill themselves and take as many of their vic-tims as possible with them, negotiation hasvery little chance of success. However, suchsituations are extremely rare, as this objectiveis more readily served by operations involv-ing the tactics of suicide bombings and feday-een shooting sprees. In barricade hostage inci-dents, terrorists are typically extremely sensi-tive to their own security during a high-pres-sure stand-off.

Contrary to popular opinion, the ter-rorists in Beslan were indeed concernedabout their safety.84 One of the threats con-tinually repeated during the crisis was thethreat to kill fifty hostages for every terroristkilled, and twenty hostages for every terror-ist injured. Throughout the conversationswith hostages, it also became apparent thatsome of the terrorists did expect to survive.At one point Khodov, whose right arm wasinjured, was told by Dr Larisa Mamitova thathe needed to see a doctor as soon as the cri-sis ended, as he was in danger of developinggangrene. Khodov then asked specificallywhat type of doctor he should go see, indi-

cating that in his case the question of survivalwas still open-ended.85 During the same con-versation, Khodov also changed his behav-iour to become very unfriendly onceMamitova told him that she had worked inthe village of Elkhotovo. It wasn’t known toher at the time but Elkhotovo was Khodov’shome village, where his mother still lived andworked, coincidentally also in the medicalfield.86 The change of behaviour towardMamitova could therefore be interpreted as asignal of fear of being identified, somethingunlikely to bother a terrorist committed tocertain death.87 In short, while there is noquestion that members of Polkovnik’s unitwere prepared to die during the Beslan opera-tion, it is questionable whether their deathwas truly designed as the operation’s onlypreferred outcome. The key challenge of thenegotiation process was to come up with asolution that would be more attractive to theterrorists than their own demise. For this rea-son, the terrorists’ declared preparedness todie might have made negotiations extremelydifficult, but certainly did not exclude thepossibility of a non-violent resolution altogether.

Indicators of De-escalationBesides the above-stated indicators of highvolatility, signs of de-escalation88 were alsopresent as the incident progressed.

One positive indicator, perhaps, was thefact that the attackers let several deadlinespass, and that they failed to follow throughwith some of their threats. Experience showsthat once a deadline is breached, it is easier tobreak through future deadlines and to pro-long the incident.89 And while the prolonga-

84 ‘Beslan Hostage-Takers Did Not Want to Die – Former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev’, MosNews, 28 September2004.85 Interview with Larisa Mamitova, Beslan, November 2005.86 Mamitova did in fact know Khodov’s mother, but never met her son before. 87 Similarly, when on the second day, Larisa Kudzyeva approached Khodov with a request to wash her blood soakedskirt, he replied, ‘You’ll wash it at home’.88 Strentz (1991), Op cit.89 McMains (2001), Op cit.

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tion of the incident by itself does not auto-matically guarantee a peaceful resolution, itdoes strengthen the chances for such an out-come. At the very least, it provides the tacti-cal unit with more time to study the behav-ioural patterns of the perpetrators and toprepare for an assault. In that sense theBeslan terrorists’ failure to follow up onsome of their threats with action constituteda positive development.

From the outset of the crisis, the terror-ists were concerned about the authoritiesturning off the lights or shutting off commu-nications, so they threatened to kill twentyhostages if their cell-phones were turned off,if it was on but one answered their call, or iflights were shut off. Late in the first day, thecell phone number Polkovnik passed to out-side for communications was in fact turnedoff, but no executions followed. On the sec-ond night of the crisis, lights were shut offduring a thunder storm but no hostages werekilled.

Another element of the crisis that gavesome cause for optimism was the release ofthe nursing mothers with their babies follow-ing Aushev’s intervention on the second day.This move demonstrated the willingness ofthe terrorists to make agreements and torelease hostages. Interestingly, it was com-paratively easy for Aushev to convince theterrorists to release the nursing mothers. Hesimply agreed to convey the terrorists’demands to Putin, and asked for the childrento be released.90 This suggests that the princi-ple of quid pro quo was clearly understood bythe terrorists. In addition, it also appears thatthey were prepared to release more people ifthe negotiations made some headway.According to hostages, on the first day theterrorists compiled a list of all children underthe legal school age, presumably to providequick reference to the hostages if they were

to be released in future deals. And since aprecedent for the release of a small numberof hostages had already been set, it couldhave been used to pave the road for furthersmall agreements at the end of which othersmall groups of hostages would be freed.Moreover, the terrorists had multipledemands, which presented an opportunity todivide the discussion in the negotiation intosmaller elements and make relatively minorprocedural agreements to facilitate thisprocess.

Negotiations: Missed OpportunitiesThroughout the Beslan crisis, the Federalauthorities kept denying the existence of anydemands made by the hostage-takers, imply-ing that there was nothing more that couldhave been done to save the lives of thehostages but to storm the location.According to the Head of the InvestigativeGroup of North Caucasus Directorate of theRussian Prosecutor-General’s office, ‘proofexists that the terrorists who seized theschool in Beslan did not intend to negotiatewith anybody.’91 His implication was, howcould one negotiate with a group of suicidaldrug addicts that has no demands?

Such distortions are easily dismissed.The terrorists did come to Beslan to achievespecific political objectives. They presented aclear set of demands. Throughout the crisis,the terrorists were eager to speak to theauthorities. But according to hostages, noone would talk to them.92 At every moment,they waited for someone to get in touch withthem, telling the hostages: ‘Be quiet, we can’thear the cell phone. If they call, maybe thingswill get better for you.’93 Some of the terror-ists also told the hostages: ‘We will not killanyone, we have a plan. If it is fulfilled youwill go home.’

90 Interview with Ruslan Aushev, Moscow, July 2005.91 RIA: Russian Official Reveals Evidence Uncovered By Beslan Investigation, 4 February 2005.92 ‘Kulayev Trial provides New beslan Details’, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 23, 16 June 2005.93 Madina Khuzmieva testimony in court, The Kulayev Trial, 19 July 2005.


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To be sure, the terrorists also keptrepeating that they came to Beslan to die,that they would blow up the school, that thehostages are ‘not needed by anyone’, that ‘noone will leave alive’, and that the hostageswould be ‘killed by their own’. But moreimportantly, the attackers put forward a clearset of conditions and demands with theintent of securing a concise set of politicalconcessions. They also specifically statedwhat they were willing to offer in exchange.Their stated demands were by themselves, ofcourse, difficult to achieve, both logisticallyand politically. But the fact that their propos-al included multiple demands and specificconditions provided much room for discus-sions without necessarily giving in to themain demand.

On the key demand to end the war inChechnya, the main mistake was the author-ities’ misplaced focus on the substantivenature of the demand and on the politicalunacceptability of fulfilling it. The situationwas viewed as a zero sum game, leadingmany to mistakenly conclude that there wasno possibility of a negotiated resolution. Themain focus should have been placed not onthe instrumental, but rather on the expressivenature of that demand, and to ask the ques-tion ‘why?’ – ‘Why do you demand the end ofwar in Chechnya?’, ‘Why should Putinresign?’ These are obvious questions thathave obvious answers, but in crisis negotia-tions such questions need to be asked, as theyprovide the terrorists an opportunity toclearly state their grievances. This, in turn,gives the negotiator an opportunity toengage the spokesperson on the other sideon a more personal level by asking about hisor her personal experience with the allegedinjustices and abuse. In doing so, an opportu-nity opens for the negotiator to expressempathy. In ideological hostage situations, itis always very difficult to move the discussionaway from ideology toward a more personallevel, and this approach provides one of the

possible ways. Forming personal rapportbetween the negotiators on both sides is acritical principle which the crisis negotiationpractice is based upon. Another reason thatasking the question ‘why?’ is important, isthe fact that answers can provide an insightinto the hostage-taker’s underlying interests.If these interests are understood, newoptions that would address the terrorist’sroot motivations and concerns, but wouldstop short of their original demands, can beintroduced. Through this process thehostage-takers’ expectations can be changed.Also, shaping the militants’ perception ofhaving achieved some success, gives them astake in the outcome, and can prevent themfrom taking radical steps that would wasteeverything that had already been accom-plished. This is why it is important to focus atthe outset on the demands that are easier tofulfill. Specifically, the demand about therelease of the hostage-taker’s imprisonedcomrades from the Nazran raid providedhope, as this was something that could feasi-bly have been discussed. According toAslakhanov, trading these prisoners for childhostages was acceptable to President Putin aswell.94

Beslan was, for all the reasons docu-mented above, an extremely challenging situ-ation. But it was not ‘immune’ to a negotiat-ed settlement, as Moscow has so robustlyasserted. For starters, that the terrorists’demands were not divided into smaller, moremanageable elements violated a cardinalprinciple of negotiation. Take, for example,the demand of the President to issue an edictthat would end the war in Chechnya. Thenegotiators should have focused on askingabout the language of the text. Would theRussian word ‘Chechnya’ or the Chechenseparatist term, ‘Ichkeria’ be used? What elsewas to be included? Simply a commitment toa pull-out of troops, or apologies for thepast? Does the pull-out of troops mean justthe army or all Federal troops? Which district

94 ‘Basaev Claims Beslan Attacks’, RFE/RL, 17 September 2004.

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should be ‘freed’ first? Is there an understand-ing of the logistical issues involved in such amassive operation? What sort of guaranteesare the terrorists prepared to propose, toprove that they will keep their promise andrelease the hostages once the pull-out is com-pleted? What gestures of good faith werethey ready to offer? Perhaps providing waterto the children? Or even releasing childrenunder seven years of age, the list of whichhad already been compiled? This is just anexample of some of the issues that couldhave been raised and discussed in order toengage the terrorists.

On day two, it was clear that the top pri-ority of the negotiations had to be theimprovement of the conditions inside theschool to enhance the survivability ofhostages. Levels of dehydration among thehostages were reaching dangerous levels,indeed some children had already starteddying. The authorities should have workedstep-by-step to offer concessions to facilitate,at a minimum, the provision of water, andthen work toward the prolongation of theincident in an attempt to wear out thehostage-takers. The terrorists stopped givingwater to the hostages on the second day, afterthe officials repeated their claim that therewere only 354 people held in the gym. Itseems possible, if not probable, that publiclyadmitting the actual number of hostagescould have been ‘exchanged’ for water for thehostages.

Another opportunity was presented bythe demand for the four negotiators specifiedby the terrorists to come to Beslan.Individually, they were unacceptable – theterrorists wanted to face Dzosokhov,Zaizikov, Aslakhanov and Roshal all at thesame time. According to the testimony ofthe sole surviving terrorist, Polkovnik offeredto release 150 people for each negotiator.When asked whether these men would beexecuted, Polkovnik made a guarantee fortheir safety.95 Importantly, Polkovnik had pre-

viously made the same guarantee for Aushevand had kept his word. The situation of theother four men was less predictable, to besure. Basayev had previously issued a fatwacalling for Zaizikov’s execution and criticizedand condemned Roshal for the statements hemade after Dubrovka. Dzosokhov andAslakhanov were obvious targets by theirtitle alone. All of these facts suggest that theywould likely have been killed if they enteredthe school. Nevertheless, just summoning allof them to Beslan, and showing their pres-ence near the siege site on television wouldput more pressure on the terrorists to recip-rocate in some way. It could have also facili-tated the discussion about possible confi-dence building measures by both sides.These attempts might not have led to any-thing, but still could have kept the communi-cations going.

Overall, the biggest mistake in Beslanwas the failure of the authorities to commu-nicate with the terrorists. True, the politicalreality cannot be overlooked. President Putinhad won his first presidency largely becauseof his tough stance on Chechnya; he couldscarcely afford being seen to negotiate withterrorists. Allowing Maskhadov to enter thenegotiations, and perhaps even succeed,would also have been a huge political andpersonal blow to Putin. Moreover, theKremlin’s fear that giving in to the terrorists’demands would only encourage further actsof terrorism is also understandable.Nevertheless, an unpublicized, small scale,behind-the-scenes negotiation effort couldhave worked to contribute toward saving thelives of hostages while at the same time lim-iting the negative impact associated with thepublic perception of a terrorist victory.

In the end, it would be difficult to arguethat Beslan could have been resolved withoutthe loss of life. Doubtless the chances ofnegotiating a complete surrender or a freepassage for the terrorists were very slight,especially given the Russian Government’s

95 Interview with Regina Revazova, Beslan, June 2005.


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track record of deceiving militants with falsepromises of safety in similar situations in thepast. Yet even if the incident was bound toend in bloodshed, maximum effort shouldhave been made to get as many hostages outof the school as possible via the negotiationprocess before resorting to a violent solution.Not only did the Federal authorities fail inthis task, they essentially failed to even try.Even more disturbingly, the official reactionsand statements on television, such as thedeliberate and clearly false downplaying ofthe number of hostages inside, exacerbated

the crisis. As in past hostage crises in Russia,the Kremlin seems to have had only one goalin mind – to discredit the separatist leader-ship and to teach Basayev a lesson. In somequarters, Putin’s ‘courage’ was applauded:the ‘no negotiations with terrorists’ policywas upheld and the ‘national interest’ wasplaced ahead of the fate of individualhostages, however painful that proved onthis occasion. Yet to concur with such senti-ments is to tacitly accept the worst possiblelesson of Beslan: it is impossible to negotiatewith the ‘new terrorists’.

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Intelligence FailureAs with any spectacular terrorist attack, oneof the central questions frequently asked bythe public concerns the issue of early intelli-gence indicators that could have provided thecritical insight needed to stop the attackoccurring in the first place. In the case ofBeslan, up until several months before theincident, a number of signs indicated aheightened level of terrorist activity in theregion, as well as, more specifically, an immi-nent attack.

Firstly, Ossetia itself has been the site ofseveral recent attacks, most of which hadspecific links to the attackers later found inBeslan. On 5 June 2003, a woman dressed ina white overcoat killed eighteen people whenshe detonated her explosive belt while tryingto board a bus carrying Russian airmen totheir base in Mozdok. Two months later, thatsame base became the target of anotherattack, when two suicide bombers drove anexplosive-laden truck into the 58th Army military hospital, killing fifty people andinjuring many others.96 At this time, theauthorities in Moscow were already in pos-session of a suspected suicide bomber,Zarema Muzhakhoyeva. According toMuzhakohyeva’s interrogation reports, shewas supposed to be the original bomber dur-ing the first Mozdok attack, but fell ill andwas unable to participate. She was then sentto Moscow with two other women and on 5July 2003, she witnessed both their deathsduring the twin suicide bombings at a rock

concert in Moscow’s Tushino Airfield, whereeighteen people were killed. Five days later,she herself was arrested and accused ofattempting to commit a suicide attack nearthe Mon-Café restaurant in the heart ofMoscow. A police officer died while trying todefuse the device.

Muzhakhoyeva’s interrogation follow-ing her arrest led to the apprehension ofRustam Ganiev, who was accused of recruit-ing and training suicide bombers forBasayev’s RAS, and whose two sisters haddied in the attack on the Dubrovka Theatrein Moscow in October 2002. Ganiev had veryclose links to a number of the Beslan terror-ists. For instance, the one person who wasarrested along with Ganiev was MayrbekShaybekhanov (who would, however, undermysterious circumstances later be freed).97

In September 2004, Shaybekhanov was oneof the terrorists holding 1,200 people hostagein the Beslan school, along with his wife,who was allegedly one of the suicidebombers.98 Another Beslan terrorist withclose links to Muzhakoyeva and Ganiev wasKhanpashi Kulayev, who coincidentally wasalso supposed to be in prison at the time ofthe Beslan attack.99 According toMuzhakoyeva’s testimony, she andKhanpashi not only belonged to the samedivision, but also ‘practically lived together’although they were never officially mar-ried.100 Similarly, one of the Beslan leaders –Vladimir Khodov – was not unknown toauthorities, having previously been wanted

96 Murphy (2005), Op cit., p. 231.97 ‘School hostage-takers released from prison’, The Russia Journal, 7 September 2004.98 Shvarev Aleksander, ‘Man With a Gun From Engenoy’, Moscow Vremya Novostey, 16 September 2004.99 Yekaterina Blinova and Anton Trofimov, ‘Beslan Hostage-takers May Have Included Arrested Terrorist, BasayevLink Likely’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 8 September 2004.100 Zaur Farniev, ‘Who Should We Kill Now, Zarema?’ Kommersant, 24 December 2005.

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on charges of rape, and was also publiclysought for the 2 February 2004 city centrebombing of Vladikavkaz, in which threepolice cadets died.101 Although a wantedman, Khodov freely moved around, and evenvisited his home village of Elkhotovo inOssetia several times.

In fact, this tangled web of relationshipsbetween the arrested contacts in Moscowand the Caucasus could have provided thenecessary information for the identificationof the key Beslan suspects beforehand. Evenif this did not happen, the fact that at leasttwo of the Beslan terrorists were supposed tobe in jail at the time of the attack, and thatanother one moved around freely in hishome village despite being a wanted man, isalarming. In addition, more indications ofheightened terrorist violence were visible inneighbouring Ingushetia, making the pres-ence of the Beslan attackers felt even moreacutely. On 15 September 2003, a suicidebomber detonated a 600-pound truck bombsixteen feet short of the newly constructedFSB building in Magas, killing three peo-ple.102 One of the key organizers of theattack was Ruslan Khuchbarov (Polkovnik) –the same man whom the authorities accusedof training suicide bombers for the operationsin Dubrovka and Mozdok, and who wouldlater lead the Beslan commando team.103

Polkovnik was also one of the leading figuresin the 21 June 2004 attack on the now formerIngushetian capital of Nazran,104 in which200 attackers wearing local police uniformsset up roadblocks intercepting and killingreal policemen and interior troops who raced

to reinforce their colleagues. The attack fol-lowed Basayev’s statement, in which heannounced that RAS was ready to launch aseries of special operations that would be‘very painful for the Putin regime and[would] take [Russia] by surprise’.105 Nearly100 people died, including several Ministers,before the fighters withdrew and disap-peared. Besides Polkovnik, at least six otherBeslan attackers participated in this attack. Inaddition, thirty-one of the attackers arrestedduring the Nazran raid later became subjectsin the Beslan negotiations. Finally, it has nowbeen reliably established that among theweapons found in the possession of the ter-rorists in Beslan, seven Kalashnikov assaultrifles and three pistols had been stolen duringthe attack on Ingushetia. During the monthof July, a number of additional incidents relating to the Nazran raid and Beslan tookplace in Ingushetia, including the death ofboth the Malgobek Deputy Chief of Policeand the Malgobek Deputy Head of theCrime Unit, who were killed in a shoot-outwith suspected terrorists on the city’s out-skirts; the discovery of a large stockpile ofweapons from Nazran in the woods nearSagopshi; and two shoot-outs near the samevillage, in which one militant was killed andanother escaped.106 Little did anyone knowthat in the forest on the hill overlookingSagophsi and Psedakh was a training camp,where the Beslan terrorists were preparingfor the operation; and that the manwho escaped the shoot-out was MusaTsechoev, whose body would later be foundamong the thirty-one Beslan terrorists

101 ‘Professional Terrorists’, Moscow Vremya Novostey, 17 September 2004.102 Murphy (2005), Op cit., p. 232.103 ‘Russian Law Enforcement Identifies Beslan Ringleader as Chechen Ruslan, ‘The Colonel’ Khuchbarov’, VremyaNovostey, FBIS ID#: CEP20040910000096.104 RFE/RL Fact Box: Major terrorist Incidents tied to Russian-Chechen War. Available at:<http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/d981dd2d-8b08-41ff-a2e2-ada25338093c.html>.105 ‘Basayev Says “Special Operations” Prepared for “Occupying Forces”’, Kavkaz-Tsentr News Agency, FBIS ID#:CEP20040617000031.106 Buse, Fichtner, Kaiser, Klussmann, Mayr, and Neef, Op cit.

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killed.107 The terrorists from the camp wereallegedly free to roam about in their homevillages, though this is not altogether surpris-ing given the small village of Psedakh hasonly one official policeman, who is on dutyonly during the hours of daylight. (In reality,however, none of the Psedakh residents con-sulted by the author have ever seen him.)108

All of these activities in the regionshould have had the local authorities on highalert. The arrest of a large number of terror-ists, who had intimate connections with theBeslan attackers, should have provided themissing pieces of the puzzle. To be fair, it istrue that the heightened level of violentactivity in the region did not go completelyunnoticed. Just twelve days before the Beslanattack, the Russian Ministry of InternalAffairs allegedly sent a telegram to all region-al police commanders warning of a possible‘Budyonnovsk-style operation’ in NorthernOssetia. This information apparently becameeven more specific several days later. OneBeslan resident, Baliko Margiev, asked a traffic policeman just four days before theattack why his car was being so carefullyinspected. To this he was told, ‘a group ofmilitants have penetrated Beslan’.109 In retro-spect, this intelligence was accurate, as oneof the terrorists was spotted by two Beslanresidents in the local marketplace a weekbefore the attack. Similarly, Beslan residentsreported several unknown men sitting onboxes in the courtyard of the school in the

week leading up to the incident.110 And final-ly, according to a report given to InteriorMinister Rashid Nurgaliev at 0500 on 1September 2004, police in the Chechen townof Shali detained someone namedArsamikov, who told them that there was aplot to seize schools in Beslan the very sameday.111 Considering there are only fourschools in Beslan, and that School NumberOne was by far the biggest and most promi-nent, it is noteworthy, to say the least, thateven after receiving this intelligence, theschool was guarded by just one unarmedfemale police officer, who did not even havea mobile phone.112 Even more disturbingly,despite elevated threat levels, the local trafficpolice, who guard major intersections nearthe school every day were not present.According to officials, the two officers whowere supposed to serve as armed security atthe school that day had been re-assigned tothe Caucasus Highway, allegedly to provideextra protection for a high-ranking officialwho was supposed to pass through. At thetime of writing, there was no available infor-mation on who that official was supposed tobe.113

With all of these early warning signs,concrete intelligence, elevated risk levels andthereby associated increased security mea-sures, how is it possible that a large group ofarmed militants was able to travel all the wayto Beslan? There are still considerable doubtsand many conspiracy theories circulating in

107 In an informal chat, several policemen who were also Sagopshi residents denied the existence of the camp, as wellas the discovery of the weapons and shoot-out with Tsechoyev. But the body language and inconsistency in theirstory have lead the author to conclude that they were lying. This is not surprising as some of the Beslan terroristswere their childhood friends and fellow policemen.108 Conversations with residents of Psedakh, November 2004.109 ‘Newspaper Provides Fresh Beslan Details’, Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 21, 1 June2005.110 ‘Kulayev Trial: The Missing Slavic Snipers’, Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 30, 3 August2005.111 ‘Newspaper Provides Fresh Beslan Details’, Op cit.112 Interview with Fatima Dudiyeva, the sole police officer present at the school during the takeover, who laterbecame a hostage. 113 John B. Dunlop, ‘Beslan: Russia’s 9/11?’, The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya and The JamestownFoundation, October 2005.


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Beslan because of statements made by theterrorists during the crisis. For instance,Khodov told Larisa Mamitova: ‘Doctor, youwill not believe it if you knew how we endedup here. Just wait till I tell you the story’.114

Khodov also mocked the authorities, boast-ing out loud to a number of hostages:‘Nobody cares about you. Your police soldyou out for $20,000’. According to hostages,Ali also claimed that getting to Beslan did notcause any problems whatsoever, and that atevery [police] post, they paid money andpassed through.115 It seems that the hostage-takers were eager to capitalize on the doubtsfor propaganda reasons, as documented bythe recorded message that they left behind inthe school. It said:

There is a small puddle. There’s nothing here –no lakes, no rivers, no sources of water at all. Justtrees, leaves, animals and that puddle. One ques-tion really interests me: Where do the frogs comefrom?

This message apparently refers to the ques-tion of how the terrorists (frogs) made it toBeslan (puddle). Police corruption is certain-ly a feasible explanation. Trying to capitalizeon the seeds of doubt in order to discreditthe Russian leadership, Basayev offered aneven more alarming version.116 He describedKhodov as a double agent, whose actionswere facilitated directly by the FSB in orderto get to him personally. Given Khodov’salleged confession of this fact, Basayevclaimed to have tricked the Russians intothinking that he would attack inVladikavkaz, drawing attention away from

Beslan. This version is supported by the factthat Khodov was immediately released afterhis initial arrest, and was able to movearound freely in Ossetia. Further, the factthat regular police posts were removed andpolice officers who were supposed to beguarding the school were called off for ‘morepressing duties’ lends additional credibility toBasayev’s claims. At the same time, however,Basayev is clearly attempting to capitalize onthe doubt and confusion surrounding Beslanstemming from the Government’s inabilityto explain certain parts of the story. ThatBasayev offered his conspiratorial versionlong after Beslan suggests that this is a well-calculated political move rather than a reflection of reality. One of Basayev’s princi-pal goals has always been to make theRussian Government appear incompetentand evil, and by do doing undermine itsauthority in the eyes of its own citizens. Theonly police officer who apparently stood upto the terrorists on their way to Beslan by try-ing to halt their progress was not commend-ed for his action – indeed, the fact that he wasnot killed was enough for the police toaccuse him of being an accomplice to the ter-rorists, and so he was, reportedly, torturedduring an interrogation117 – raises myriadquestions about Moscow’s motivations dur-ing the crisis.

Operational ManagementEven more pressing and troubling than theintelligence failure are the events surround-ing the storming of the school, and the con-

114 Interview with Larisa Mamitova, Beslan, November 2005.115 ‘Kulayev Trial: The Missing Slavic Snipers’, Op cit.116 Shamil Basayev, ‘We have got much to tell about Beslan...’ open letter of the Chechen journalist AhmadIchkeriiskiy, Kavkaz Center, 1 September 2005.117 When Major Sultan Gurashev, an Ingush police officer that encountered and single-handedly tried to stop thesuspicious vehicles near the village of Khurikau, he was disarmed and tied up in one of the cars. The terrorists lefthim there as they stormed the school. After Gurashev’s interrogation by the authorities, he was released withlacerations on his forehead and crushed testicles, fired from his job, and his village was surrounded by strictcheckpoints that made it difficult to go to markets or hospitals. Khurikau residents’ requests to restore gas andelectricity in the village have been consistently ignored, prompting accusations of collective punishment. (Interviewwith Gurashev’s brother-in-law, Ali Khurikau, November 2005).

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tradictory statements by various officials inrelation to the negotiation efforts. This sec-tion will focus on some of the discrepanciesand mistakes associated with operationalmanagement.

Management FailuresFrom the beginning, the response manage-ment of the Beslan siege was highly disorga-nized. The incident was handled by at leastsix different command centres with little co-operation among them. According toOssetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, ‘allimportant decisions taken between 1–3September were under the direct control ofFSB Deputy Directors Pronichev andAnisimov or originated from them’.118People from the local command centre werenot consulted by their Federal counterparts;two well-built, well-armed men preventedanyone, including the local officials, fromentering the Federal command centre.119According to Novaya Gazeta, witnesses con-firm that just hours after Russian comman-dos began to storm the school, ‘the group ofFSB employees quickly packed up theirequipment and left the [Beslan city] adminis-tration building in an unknown direc-tion.’120

The chaotic nature of the set-up wasunderlined by the number of agencies thatwere present at the site, including the eliteAlfa and Vympel units, Military Intelligencetroops (TRU), Interior Army (BB), Local FSBdivision, Center of Special Purpose(USNRSB), local police, Army Secret Police(GROU), Special Purpose Detachment ofMilitsiya (OMON), Rapid Deployment

Special Troops (SOBR), and regular RussianArmy (technical support: tanks, transporters,etc.).121 All of these had their own chain ofcommand, and mutual communicationamong them was limited. Two principalperimeters existed, with the external perime-ter set up by the 58th Army about threehours into the attack. The Army was laterjoined by some local policemen who took uppositions on their own initiative without anyspecific orders or instructions. In the innerperimeter, there were a number of differentoperational teams and local civilians withguns. This presented a major problem, as thisperimeter was too close to the school, andthere were frequent exchanges of sniper firewith the terrorists. On the second day, theterrorists even fired a rocket propelledgrenade (RPG) at a car to force the armedmen outside to keep their distance. In addi-tion, the gunmen reportedly tried to provokedivisions between the Federal and Ossetianofficials in the Operational Headquarters bytrying to convince the locals that they shouldform a human shield around the school toprevent storming.122 The armed locals tookthis idea even further. With vivid images ofthe 129 dead hostages in the Moscow theatrecrisis in mind, they threatened to shoot theFederal troops themselves if they startedstorming the school. Yet throughout the inci-dent, these local volunteers were never dis-armed and neutralized. This added a highlevel of instability to the already difficult sit-uation. Further, the double perimeter wassimply not made secure enough, despite thelarge number of troops present. For instance,Russian journalist Madina Shavlokhova –who arrived several hours into the crises –

118 ‘Documents Suggest that the Feds Were in Charge During Beslan’, Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly,Volume 6, Issue 15, 20 April 2005.119 Dzoskokhov was the only local allowed to enter the Federal Command Center, but when he entered the roomeveryone went quiet and just stared at him. He walked in and said, ‘Am I disturbing you?’ and they would be polite,but they wouldn’t involve him in any major decision-making. (Interview with Stanislav Kesaev, Vladikavakaz,November 2005).120 ‘Documents Suggest that the Feds Were in Charge During Beslan’, Op cit.121 Interview with Andrei Soldatov, Moscow, July 2005.122 Plater-Zyberk, Op cit.


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accidentally found herself right in theschool’s courtyard without running into asingle police or Army barrier.123

In short, the entire set-up of the opera-tion was highly chaotic. There was no con-sensus on who was in charge, too many bod-ies were without sufficient communicationsystems and co-ordination, and armed civil-ians were not controlled in any way. Theoperational scene was a disaster waiting tohappen. Thus, it is hardly surprising that theorigin of the explosion that triggered thestorming has been the subject of suchintense speculation. No less than fourteendifferent versions of what allegedly causedthe initial explosion have been uncoveredthus far. Perhaps four of them are plausible,but in each case there are many other piecesof evidence that do not seem to fit. The twoversions with the highest level of plausibilityinclude an accidental detonation of the firstbomb and the ‘sniper theory’. The former isessentially the official version, which claimsthat one of the bombs, attached to a basket-ball hoop by adhesive tape, detonated acci-dentally after it slipped off the hoop. Thescorching temperatures in the gym arethought to have melted the glue holding it inplace. The second explosion, which occurredtwenty-two seconds later, was then allegedlytriggered deliberately by the terrorists,believing they were being stormed.However, this version is not wholly viable forseveral reasons. First, it was not the bomb inthe hoop that exploded first, rather it was theone hanging on a string connecting the twohoops. Second, according to hostages, thebomb exploded in the air, implying it wastriggered by something other than impactwith the floor. Third, according to AndreiGagloyev, the Commander of the

Engineering Troops of the 58th Army, ‘suchexplosive devices cannot be triggered by hit-ting the floor’.124 Fourth, the explosion hap-pened at the very same moment a lorrypulled up to collect the bodies of the twenty-one men killed earlier indicating a likely con-nection between these two events.

The Sniper Theory received much pub-licity after Kulayev’s testimony. He claimedthe detonation occurred as a result of asniper killing the terrorist whose foot restedon the detonation pedal to prevent the elec-trical circuit from closing. But in Beslan, itwas Fatima Dudiyeva’s account, the localpolicewoman who later became a hostage,which first mentioned the Sniper Theory.Moments before detonation, she was sittingnext to the window stretching her back andreaching her arms up. At that moment she‘heard a sound like a stone being thrownthrough the window. And then there waspain’. She looked at her right hand and it wasbleeding out of a hole in her palm.125 Shortlythereafter, there was an explosion. AlaRamonova, another hostage, confirms this:‘Right before the first explosion, somethingflew into the gym with a whistling sound,and the terrorist standing on the switchclutched his side and fell over.126 The FederalCommission in Moscow was extremely quickto discredit this story. The Head of theCommission, Alexander Torshin explainedthat the gym windows were coated with aspecial plastic called ‘Lexan’, which makesthem opaque. Consequently, it would havebeen impossible for a sniper to see anythinggoing on inside. ‘Besides,’ said Torshin, ‘thisterrorist [with the foot on the switch] wasstanding in a ‘dead-zone’, meaning he couldnot have been in the line of fire. Terroristsare not idiots.’127 However, even if Lexan was

123 Interview with Madina Shavlokhova, Beslan, July 2005.124 Controversial evidence in Kulayev case, Caucasian Knot, 17 January 2006.125 Interview with Fatima Dudiyeva, Beslan, November 2005.126 Interview with Ala Ramonova, Beslan, July 2005.127 Snajperam mewalo special;noe osteklenie v beslanskoj wkole, 12 August 2005<http://lenta.ru/news/2005/08/12/sniper/>.

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used to coat the glass, as early as day one theterrorists purposely broke top sections ofeach window for fear the authorities woulduse gas, as in the case of Dubrovka, thuseffectively removing the supposed obstacle ofvisibility. In addition, from the upper floorsand the roof of one of the two five-storeyapartment buildings near the school, wheresnipers were positioned, it is not only possi-ble to see inside the gym through the topparts of the windows, but the terrorist can betargetted in a clear line of fire. In addition,the fact that the blast took place as the lorrypulled up to collect the bodies might suggesta level of co-ordination, as the distractionprovided a good opportunity to strike.

Another point of acute controversyrelates to the sequence of events after the ini-tial storming of the school. From the outsetof the crisis, FSB First Deputy DirectorVladimir Pronichev spoke categoricallyagainst any military scenario, claiming that asa matter of principle, the FSB did not devel-op any plans to attack the school.128 This was,of course, nonsense. The necessity of havinga rescue operation plan in place as an optionof last resort should the hostage-takers startkilling hostages is a fundamental componentof any response to a hostage situation.

According to witnesses, tanks andarmoured vehicles pulled up to the school onthe evening of day two.129 These were laterused not only as a cover for the advancingSpetsnaz troops, but were also used to firetank shells at the school during the laterstages of the rescue operation. According toa testimony given by Sergeant Godovalov,the Commander of one of the T-72 tanks in

question, the tank fired on the school on theorders of an Alpha officer, part of the eliteanti-terrorist unit. According to the testimo-ny, the tank ‘fired four times at a spot whereone of the terrorists was believed to be locat-ed, and was then moved to another area,where, again on the Alpha officer’s orders, itfired three ‘anti-personnel rounds’ at threeoutermost windows on the school’s secondfloor.’130 Whether the tank fire took placewhile hostages were still at the gym is a pointof much contention. For instance, AndreiGagloyev, Commander of the EngineeringTroops of the 58th Army, testified at theKulayev trial that the tanks fired when thegym no longer contained any hostages.131

However, First Deputy Chairman of theParliament of North Ossetia, Izrail Totoonti,disagrees. He claims that he first heard thetanks fire at about 1400: ‘That was before webegan bringing hostages out of theschool.’132 Totoonti’s version is in concertwith the testimonies of hostages, and there-fore this issue remains a source of intenseanger amongst Beslan residents, who lostfamily members or friends in the siege.

Tanks were not the only unsuitableequipment used during this hostage rescueoperation. Even more controversial was theuse of Shmel flamethrowers. The BeslanMothers Committee claim that in 218 of the331 fatalities, burns were established as thecause of death.133 The issue of Shmels firstarose after Beslan residents found severallaunchers and passed them over for investiga-tion. Originally, the authorities denied usingthese weapons, claiming that they belongedto the terrorists. However, two of the used

128 Lawrence Uzzell, ‘Reporter Puts Forward Another Version of Events,’ Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly,Volume 5, Issue 35, 15 September 2004.129 Elena Milashina, ‘Eyewitnesses: ‘The roof caught fire when they began shooting shells at it’’ Novaya Gazeta , 7October 2004.130 ‘Newspaper Provides Fresh Beslan Details,’ Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly Volume 6, Issue 21, 1 June2005.131 Controversial evidence in Kulayev case, Caucasian Knot, 17 January 2006.132 Interview with Israil Ttoonti, Beslan, November 2005.133 Interview with the head of the Beslan Mothers’ Committee, Susanna Duadyieva and local journalist and witnessMurag Kaboev, Beslan, July 2005.


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launchers were found on the roof of an adja-cent building, suggesting they were used tofire upon the school. This is consistent withhostage testimonies, which claim that evenafter the initial explosions, there was only asmall fire inside the gym. At the same time,melting plastic was dripping on them fromthe ceiling, long before any fire was visiblefrom the inside. Eventually, an aide to theVladikavkaz garrison military prosecutor,identified as Major Justice Eminov, con-firmed that Shmel flamethrowers were used.He stated that they may have ‘possibly killedhostages or caused them bodily harm ofvarying degrees of severity.’134 It did not helpthat the fire trucks arriving at the scene ranout of water almost immediately.

Notwithstanding the myriad complexi-ties and obstacles encountered by the res-cuers, the rescue operation was, overall, ahuge blunder. Perhaps most alarming wasthe use of tanks and flamethrowers to fire atthe school while it still contained hostages,which suggests that the lives of hostageswere, once again, considered secondary tothe punishment and elimination of the ter-rorists. What’s more, the heavy-handednessof the Russian authorities actually playedinto Basayev’s strategy. After Beslan, Basayevstated:

We came there not to kill people but to stop the war,and if it works out that way, to force the Russian lead-ership to kill its own civilians, if only through this toforce the lying and vain world to understand what isreally going on, to lay bare our wound and pain,because people don’t see what is happening inChechnya. They see it only when huge actions like thisone occur on the territory of Russia itself.135

Media ManagementSince media coverage can directly influencethe outcome of a hostage crisis, media man-agement is an absolutely crucial part of theresponse strategy. First, the media picture

shapes perceptions among the general popu-lation, which in turn can affect how decision-makers assess the urgency of the situationand their appropriate course of action.Second, media coverage also influences theperceptions of the hostage-takers, as it servesas one of the main sources of informationfor the people on the inside. In momentswhen the negotiations hit a roadblock, tele-vized coverage of public statements can beused to communicate messages to thehostage-takers indirectly. This is especiallytrue of hostage crises in Russia, where thehostage-takers keenly follow the televisionand radio reports in order to gain knowledgeabout what was going on in the outsideworld. And third, media coverage has alwaysbeen one of the most important tools inresolving hostage crises, especially onesmotivated by religious or ideological griev-ances. In such cases, the hostage-takers aretypically interested in conveying their pointof view to the highest number of viewerspossible. In such a setting, the access tomedia has historically been used as a valuablebargaining chip to obtain the release ofhostages or some other concessions onbehalf of the hostage-takers.

The media’s impact on the outcomecan also be a very negative one. In the past, anumber of hostage crises have been compli-cated by irresponsible reporting, such as theairing of live footage of rescue teams movinginto position or the revealing of hostagesidentities to those on the inside, leading totheir execution. As a result, media manage-ment needs to be handled with utmost carein any hostage situation. This requires amutual understanding of media andGovernment interests.

From this perspective, too, Beslan was acolossal failure. The information that wasreleased to the media was manipulated socrudely that everyone in Beslan, including

134 ‘Newspaper Provides Fresh Beslan Details,’ Op cit.135 Basayev Interview for Channel 4 News, 4 February 2005.

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the terrorists, knew that this could not havebeen unintentional. On day one, LevDzugayev,136 the North Ossetian Presidentspokesman, originally identified the numberof hostages inside the school as 120. But helater corrected himself by raising the figureto 354. This was School Number One, thelargest school in Beslan, accommodatingnearly 1,000 students. Moreover, it was 1September, a day when many parents andfamily members accompany the youngerchildren to school for a special celebrationknown as the Day of Knowledge. In addition,the fact that the number of hostages wasover 1,200 was conveyed by the terrorists intelephone conversations with officials, and toRuslan Aushev, who personally visited thegym. Aushev was even handed a videotape,which featured the scenes from the gym,where it was obvious that there were severalhundred hostages present. The authoritiesimmediately, and stubbornly, claimed thetape was blank, even when it was later shownon the NTV channel. Mamitova, the doctor,who had on two occasions brought out theterrorist demands on a piece of paper, alsoconveyed the real number of hostages onboth occasions. In short, it is beyond reason-able doubt that the actual number ofhostages in the gym was known to every per-son in the region, as demonstrated by thefact that 1,045 hospital beds in four Beslanand Vladikavkaz hospitals were being freedin preparation for the worst. And yet, theauthorities continued to insist that the num-ber of hostages was 354. This approach notonly angered the local residents and under-mined public confidence in Governmentstatements, it was also directly responsiblefor escalating the tensions during the crisis.

The terrorists knew immediately that theGovernment was purposefully downplayingthe number of hostages, and interpreted thismove as public relations preparations for theaftermath of an inevitable rescue operation.Immediately after the 354 figure wasannounced, the terrorists started to runaround the gym screaming: ‘They say thatthere are 354 of you. Nobody needs you.Maybe we will just reduce you to that num-ber!’ In addition, when this number was con-sistently repeated even on day two, the ter-rorists stopped giving the children water.Overall, the Government’s insistence on theunrealistically low number of hostages madean already bad situation much worse.

The next issue that arose with regardsto the media management of the Beslansiege involved some highly disturbing allega-tions of Government restrictions on mediacoverage unfavourable to the Russian state.For instance, immediately after the crisis,officials in Mineralnye Vody detained theMoscow Bureau Chief of the satellite televi-sion channel, Al-Arabiya, on his way fromBeslan.137 Similarly, Nana Lezhava, who cov-ered the events of Beslan for Georgia’s inde-pendent Rustavi-2 TV station, was arrested(though never charged) on suspicion of a visaviolation.138 Russian journalists were also notspared harassment. The editor of Izvestiya,Raf Shakirov, was fired two days after thenewspaper expressed a critical view of theGovernment’s management of the Beslancrisis. Citing similar reasons, the editor ofKompaniyam Andrei Grigoryev also faced dis-missal after Beslan.139 But the authorities’desire to prevent disagreeable journalistsfrom participating in the reporting of thecrisis went much further than this. Anna

136 Lev Dzugayev’s father passed away several days prior to the incident, so this was a very difficult time period forhim. 137 ‘Izvestia’s Chief Editor Raf Shakirov Fired over Hostage Drama Coverage’, MosNews, 6 September 2004.<http://mosnews.com/news/2004/09/06/daily.shtml>.138 ‘Georgian Journalists Detained in Beslan Released’, MosNews, 8 September 2004.<http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/09/08/journalists.shtml>.139 Claire Cozens, ‘Russian editor faces sack over Beslan coverage,’ The Guardian, 28 September 2004.<http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,,1314666,00.html>.


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Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta journalistthat for years assumed a highly critical stancetoward Russian Government actions inChechnya, travelled to Beslan immediatelyafter she heard about the school takeover.Given her pro-Chechen position and pasttrack record of serving as a negotiator in theMoscow theatre hostage crisis, Politkovskayawould have likely been able to jumpstart thenegotiations. All flights to Beslan fromMoscow’s Vnukovo airport were full, but atthe last moment she was personallyapproached by an ‘airport executive’ andplaced on a flight to Rostov on Don. Afterdrinking a cup of tea onboard the plane, shestarted to feel dizzy and then woke up in ahospital in Rostov, having survived ‘acutefood poisoning’. Politkovskaya claimed thatshe was poisoned by the FSB in order to pre-vent her being in Beslan. There is no evi-dence to back up this claim as all the medicaland forensic samples taken at the airporthave disappeared.140 Roughly two years later,on 7 October 2006, Politkovskaya wasgunned down in front of her Moscow apartment.

Politkovskaya was not the only opposi-tion journalist to be prevented from reachingBeslan. Andrei Babitsky was detained at thesame airport on suspicion of ‘trying to smug-gle explosives onboard the plane’, and wasthus prevented from flying. When no explo-sives were found, Babitsky was released, butthen held again shortly afterwards forallegedly attempting to pick a fight with twomen at the airport. The whole case was laterdismissed, but the damage was done –Babitsky never reached Beslan. Strong suspi-cions exist that both cases were deliberateefforts to prevent potentially acceptablemediators from reaching the site of the crisis.This has, of course, caused further cracks in

the Kremlin’s version that everything possiblewas done to save the lives of the hostages.

InvestigationConfidence in the authorities’ handling ofthe Beslan crisis was by no means strength-ened in the aftermath of the attack nor during the subsequent investigation. Manyquestions still remain unanswered. The firstsuch question concerns the number of ter-rorists involved. Official figures indicate thatthirty-one terrorists were killed, and one,Nur-Pasha Kulayev, was captured alive. Sincethe authorities claim that not a single terror-ist escaped, the number of terrorists partici-pating in the attack is officially thirty-two.However, there is a consensus amonghostages and Beslan residents that the num-ber of terrorists was much higher, with mostestimates falling into the range of fifty to sev-enty attackers. And while the authorities dis-pute even the possibility that anyone gotaway, numerous pieces of evidence suggestotherwise. First, there are specific terroristswho ‘disappeared’ after day two, never to beseen again even among the bodies of thekilled terrorists. Amongst them was Ali, oneof the leaders and the main negotiator.Hostages also report the disappearance of anumber of Slavic-looking terrorists, includ-ing a woman with fair hair tied in a pony-tail,in black camouflage overalls, holding a sniperrifle and smoking a cigarette,141 and a myste-rious ‘big, red-haired man with a red face,who spoke Russian without an accent, andwhom the hostages were specifically forbid-den to look at.142 In addition, a number ofhostages recognized three militants, OmarSheykhulayev and Shamil Abidov, andGadzhi Melikov, who as of 2005 were report-edly at large and on Dagestan’s most wanted

140 Ibid.141 ‘Kulayev Trial: The Missing Slavic Snipers,’ Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 30, 3 August2005.142 Ibid.

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list.143 The hostages consulted while gather-ing research for this report all agreed, afterbeing shown pictures of these men, thatSheykhulayev was there; about half of themremember seeing Abidov, though only twopointed to Melikov. Their absence on the listof identified terrorists has, of course, otherexplanations as well. Only nineteen of thebodies have actually been identified,144 whilethe rest are so dismembered that their facesare not recognizable, five of them so badlythat it was not even possible to obtain finger-prints.145 As a result, it is possible that at leastsome of the ‘missing’ terrorists are amongthese unidentifiable bodies. Nevertheless,this does not explain the fact that the Federaltroops reported having a shoot-out withSheikhulayev and several of his men inDagestan on 5 January 2005,146 and thatMelikov was killed only on 26 August 2006 inMakhachkala.147 Similarly, Iznaur Kodzoyev –whose wife was summoned to the school onday two to try to convince her husband torelease the children – was killed not inSeptember 2004 in Beslan, but instead, in hisnative village of Al’tievo in April 2005.148

Overall, it is more than probable that anumber of terrorists did actually get awayfrom the school, which is hardly surprisinggiven the chaos at the scene and the fact theterrorists were equipped with civilian cloth-

ing and other items to help them escape. Themore serious issue, though, is the failure ofthe authorities to acknowledge this possibili-ty, which has led to a further upsurge of con-spiracy theories and a considerable drop infaith in the Government. This is further exac-erbated by the fact that one source close tothe investigation claims to have arrestedthree terrorists, and even witnessed the inter-rogation of one of them – VladimirKhodov.149 Yet Khodov’s body has clearly, andunanimously, been identified among thedead terrorists by the hostages and investiga-tors alike. This did not, however, stop theNorth Ossetian police spokesman fromclaiming that Khodov had been capturedalive but committed suicide the next day.‘You understand,’ he added, ‘that is the offi-cial version.’150 Additional questionable state-ments regarding the identity of the attackerswere also made. Originally, the authoritiesindicated that at least ten of the terroristswere Arabs, one was a ‘black negro fromAfrica’ and one a Korean. This was a clearmove to support the Kremlin’s argument thatthe Beslan attack was the work of interna-tional terrorism, in an attempt to prove adefinitive and direct connection between theChechens and Al-Qa’ida. The ‘black negrofrom Africa’ was in fact a Chechen terroristkilled on day one, whose body was blackened

143 Madina Shavlokhova, ‘Beslan Gunmen Recognized Among Living’, Izvestiya, 21 November 2005.144 This identification problem extended to the hostages as well. At least five bodies had to be exhumed due to falseidentification. A large number of bodies have still not been identified. Those parents that were not sure whether thebodies were really those of their children, were told that they would have DNA tests run at Rostov-on-Don for €300,a large sum for most Beslan residents. Similarly, many parents were not allowed to keep their children’s bodies in themorgue due to insufficient space, and were forced to rent space in refrigerated trucks for 300 rubles per night. 145 Sergey Dyupin, ‘The Investigation is Hitting it on the Head,’ Kommersant, 15 September 2004.146 ‘Federal Forces Battle Handful of Dagestani Militants,’ Jamestown Foundation, Chechnya Weekly Volume 7, Issue 1,5 January 2006.147 ‘Rebel Warlord Killed Saturday in South Russia’, MosNews, 27 August 2006.<http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/27/warlord.shtml>.148 PRESS-RELEASE #1251: Special operation in Al’tievo. <http://friendly.narod.ru/2005-2e/info1251e.htm>, 14April 2005.149 ‘Russian Commando Says Officials Concealing Truth Behind Beslan,’ MosNews, 4 November 2004.<http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/11/04/vasskp1.shtml>.150 Franchetti, Mark and Campbell, Matthew, ‘How a repressed village misfit became the butcher of Beslan’, TheSunday Times, 12 September 2004. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1257953_1,00.html>.151 The number of Arabs is a rare point of agreement between the official version and Basayev’s version.


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from the gym fire, and the number of Arabspresent was just two.151 According toGerman secret services, they were citizens ofSyria and Jordan.152 According to othersources, they were Algerian nationals.153

Overall, the botched official Beslaninvestigation has discredited nearly everyoneinvolved in it. The school itself was neversealed off for a forensic examination of any

kind. Many items that ended up being criticalpieces of evidence only entered the investiga-tion after they were collected directly by thepeople in Beslan and handed to the authori-ties. At the time of writing, the authoritiescontinue to release controversial and contra-dictory pieces of ‘evidence’, the provenanceof which is, invariably, disputed.

152 ‘Arab Mercenaries in Beslan Said Citizens of Syria, Jordan,’ ITAR-TASS, 5 September 2004.153 Nick Paton Walsh, and Peter Beaumont, ‘When Hell Came Calling at Beslan’s School No 1’, The Observer, 5September 2004.

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In the aftermath of Beslan, Basayev – unsur-prisingly – placed all the blame on Moscow,declaring that he regretted that ‘so many chil-dren died at the hands of the Russians’,though did not regret the seizure of theschool itself.154 But unlike Dubrovka, he didnot make any attempt to plead for interna-tional sympathy; rather, he threatened toattack ‘citizens of states whose leaders sup-port Putin’s Chechen policy’, and proclaimedthat ‘we would sooner set this world on firethan refuse to fight for our freedom and inde-pendence!’155 In another interview conduct-ed in January 2005, Basayev confirmed hisintention to launch more ‘Beslan-style’ oper-ations in the future.156

On 10 July 2006, Basayev was killed inthe Ingush village of Ekhazhevo. He was rid-ing in one of the cars escorting a truck filledwith 220 pounds explosives in preparation foran attack when the truck, hitting a pothole,exploded. Since then, the Chechen separatistmovement has suffered many setbacks.However, Basayev did leave behind a net-work of so-called ‘Caucasian Front’ mili-tants, which now operate in Dagestan,Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia,Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia,Adygea, Stavropol, and Krasnodar. AnotherBeslan-style operation on Russian territory istherefore likely, if not inevitable.

More disturbingly, current develop-ments suggest that similar operations may

also be carried out by other groups outside ofRussia. Basayev is now an icon within inter-national jihadi circles, and other groupsaround the world have taken note of his sig-nature tactic. In issue ten of al-Qaida’s onlinemanual, Al Battar, mentioned at the begin-ning of this report, the late Abdul Aziz alMuqrin offers detailed instructions on carry-ing out barricade hostage operations, making numerous references to the tacticsused in ‘Shamil’s operation in Moscow’.157

For the newly formed independent cellsbehind the majority of today’s spectacularworldwide terrorist attacks, online materialsform a key component of their operationalblueprints.

In al Battar, al Muqrin employs a strik-ingly analytical, almost academic approachto identifying the scope of possible purposesand goals of launching what he calls ‘overtkidnappings’. These include the ‘shedding oflight on a specific cause, forcing a govern-ment or a group to carry out certaindemands, or putting governments in a politically embarrassing situation’. Al Muqrinalso argues that history is full of examples ofvery successful hostage-takings, above all‘the operation carried out by CommanderShamil Basayev in Moscow. . . which was 100per cent successful because it brought thecause back to the world arena.’ This break-down demonstrates the high level of strategic calculation on the part of the con-

154 Statement of Chief of the Military Council of State Defense Council «Majlis al-Shura» of Chechen Republic ofIchkeria Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris concerning the events of 23-26 October 2002 in Moscow. Internet. Available at<http://62.212.121.113/www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/articlebe27.html?id=605>.155 Ibid.156 Kavkaz Center: Transcript of Shamil Basayev Interview for Channel 4 News. Internet. Available at:<http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=3500>. Accessed on 8 April 2005.157 Mansfield, Laura, ‘Chechen terrorists follow al-Qaida manual’. Available at: <http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40298>. Accessed on 12 December 2004.

Chapter 5: Conclusions


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temporary jihadi groups. Barricade hostage-takings are designed to achieve real timecomprehensive and pragmatic goals, not justthe simple killing of hostages, as has some-times been suggested in the context of crises,such as Beslan and Dubrovka. As such, nego-tiations still have a prominent role to play inresolving these situations. Further, alMurqrin’s point about making a cause ‘glob-al’ is also intimately linked to the visualaspect of the event. This is one of the reasonswhy al Muqrin considers a hostage-takingoperation to have a ‘missionary componentas well’ and thus instructs hostage-takers toobserve the Sharia at all times and not to lookat women. He even declares: ‘You must keepyour word, as our religion has taught us, sodon’t kill any hostages after the enemy hasaccepted your terms and is carrying themout.’ This suggests at least the plausibility ofterrorists keeping their promises when they,for instance, ‘guarantee’ safety to the negotiator when requesting face-to-facenegotiations.

With regards the negotiation processitself, al Murqin instructs the hostage-takersto pay close attention to the negotiator – thekey figure who can ‘strike fear and disap-pointment in the hearts of hostage-takers ashe works to know the personality and thepsychological condition of the kidnappersand their respective morale. He would knowimmediately if the [hostage-takers’] moralewas down or whether [they] were deter-mined and ready to carry out [their] threats.’Al Muqrin also claims, erroneously, that thenegotiator is most likely the leader of theresponse team, who has the authority togive the go ahead for the storming of thelocation. (Negotiations are practically neverhandled by the commanding officer, in orderto exploit the deferment of authority strategy.)

Recalling Dubrovka, al Muqrin stressesthat the incident must not be prolonged sincethe ‘capability of the group gets weaker bythe day and tensions rise.’ In order to achievea prompt fulfillment of their demands, the

hostage-takers are instructed to executehostages in the beginning of the incident toprove their willingness to carry out theirthreats. Though his call for executions is onlyapplicable to those hostages that are ‘eligiblefor such action’. This suggests that despitethe acceptability of killing hostages, selectionshould not be indiscriminate. It is specifiedelsewhere, that these ‘eligible hostages’include the ‘security element’. In otherwords, members of the police or militaryforces found among the hostages. The manu-al also prescribes the separation of the youngmen who ‘constitute a threat with theiryouthfulness’. Understanding the logic forthe selection of specific hostages for execu-tion and the circumstances in which thesekillings occur will become vital to the analysis of whether the terrorists are indeedprepared to kill all of their hostages indis-criminately, or alternatively whether negotia-tion might stand a chance. At the same time,it is important to note that many of theinstructions in the manual also focus on dis-rupting the formation of the Stockholm syn-drome in order to preserve the hostage-tak-ers’ resolve to kill their hostages if necessary.These measures include the instructions tokeep the faces of the hostage-takers and theeyes of the hostages covered at all times, andto only approach the hostages in cases ofemergency and necessity, keeping the dis-tance to no less than 1.5 metres. Such mea-sures are designed to limit interaction withthe hostages, and thus reduce the chances oftheir humanization in the minds of thehostage-takers.

ImplicationsIn the era of traditional terrorism, barricadehostage-takings represented one of the mostinfluential terrorist tactics. Their capacity toattract wide international attention, and thusa platform for the expression of grievances,without necessarily killing civilians, seducedmany aggrieved groups in the past. Indeed,the majority of hostage incidents ended in a

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peaceful outcome.158 With the rise of the so-called ‘new terrorism’, which places muchgreater emphasis on killing, barricadehostage incidents had temporarily assumed amuch less prominent role in the tacticalrepertoire of terrorist organizations.Recently, however, we are witnessing a resur-gence of such incidents with a greater will-ingness of the terrorists to execute hostages,more unconditional suicidal posture of theperpetrators, involvement of large teams ofhostage-takers armed well enough to repel apossible rescue operation, prior knowledgeof the operational ‘cookbook’ of hostagenegotiation and response teams, and meticu-lous prior planning. From first glance, it isclear that the response to such incidentsrequires a different protocol for negotiationthan used in the past, as well as a re-evalua-tion of the rules of engagement.

Incidents like Beslan, as well as manualssuch as the al Battar 10, suggest that while weshould certainly expect the resolution offuture hostage incidents to be extremelychallenging – owing to the hostage-taker’sextensive knowledge of operational proce-dure, security precautions, and a high level ofdistrust in the authorities’ intentions – thereis still room for a negotiated settlement.Whether we will succeed in this endeavourin the future will largely depend on the polit-ical sanction of the use of negotiations toresolve hostage crises, as well as on our abili-ty to adapt to the different circumstances andrequirements of situations involving ideolog-ically inspired hostage-takers. Unfortunately,terrorist hostage incidents involving no lossof life are likely to be rare. At the same time,as long as there is an understanding of theprincipal of quid pro quo on behalf of thehostage-takers, negotiations are possible.And even in such situations where a tacticalresolution will be required to end the crisis,the negotiation element will still be crucial,as it can be used to get the maximum num-

ber of people out of the target locationbefore the storming.

Outside of the negotiation realm,Beslan also highlights the importance ofestablishing and maintaining a well-orga-nized response scene, as well as media man-agement. In hostage situations, every ele-ment needs to communicate with each otherunder a clear chain of command. Any disrup-tive elements such as armed outsiders needto be controlled, disarmed, and movedbehind a secured perimeter. Given theextreme level of emotion involved, this willrequire a skilled negotiation effort of its own.Further, effective consequence managementwill be critical in reducing the negativeimpact of a possible rescue operation. Quitesimply, a timely response saves lives.

Another salutary lesson from Beslanrelates to government secrecy and ‘spin’.Whilst they may serve a valuable function inthe short term to ameliorate specific aspectsof a crisis, applying such a strategy in thelong-term – indeed, establishing it as policy –will ultimately be counter-productive. Whengovernments are caught covering up andmanipulating evidence in the aftermath of afailed counter-terrorism effort, it only bene-fits the terrorists for whom the embarrass-ment of a government and the underminingof its authority is a critical component oftheir grand strategy. Not only must we avoidfeeding into this strategy, we also must learnto counter it effectively. Perhaps the bestdefence is to provide a comprehensive publicinvestigation, akin to the 9/11 CommissionReport following the attacks in 2001 onWashington and New York, published by theUS Congress, or the White Paper about theactivities of the Jeemah Islamiyah cell inSingapore, published by its Home Ministry.Both of these reports reveal in great detailthe involvement and activities of the individ-uals responsible, and hide nothing exceptvery specific sensitive information that

158 Adam Dolnik, ‘Contrasting Dynamics of Crisis Negotiations: Barricade versus Kidnapping Incidents’, InternationalNegotiation (Vol. 8, No. 3, 2003).


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would endanger the security of human intel-ligence sources. Even more importantly, theyfacilitate the identification of mistakes andthe drawing of lessons learnt, with the goalof ensuring that the same mistakes do notoccur in the future. The RussianGovernment, despite originally dismissingthe idea, also finally agreed to conduct a sim-ilar open investigation into the events ofBeslan. Unfortunately, the report that wasprepared by the (Federal) TorshinCommission differs sharply in many of thedescriptions of events and conclusions fromthe report compiled by the (local) KesaevCommission. In fact, despite taking morethan two years to complete, the TorshinCommission simply upheld the initial federalclaims, while stripping federal authorities ofany responsibility whatsoever. The TorshinCommission report simply insisted that therewere only thirty-two terrorists who werehigh on drugs, and who detonated the explo-sive devices inside, thereby triggering the

storm. Perhaps out of resentment to themore critical Kesaev Commission report, thefederal report alleged that the only mistakesmade were by the locals. ‘The terrorist actwas not prevented, because local police didnot follow the regulations established by the[federal] Russian Interior Ministry’, thereport stated. Further, the report evenclaimed that there is no evidence that tanksand flame-throwers were used to storm theschool building. In sum, the Commission’sfindings were so outrageous that even one ofthe Commission’s own members, YuriSavelyev, felt the need to present his ownreport, in which he contradicted most of theofficial claims. The inability or unwillingnessof the federal authorities to admit and identify the flaws in the response to Beslandoes more than obstruct accountability ofindividuals responsible for these mistakes; iteffectively inhibits the learning process,which means that Beslan is bound to repeatitself.

On 1 September 2004, a group of terrorists seized more than 1,200 hostages in School NumberOne in the North Ossetian town of Beslan. It was the first day of the new school year. The

deadliest hostage crisis in history was about to unfold.Based on exhaustive open source research in three languages, examination of thousands of

pages of witness testimonies and court transcripts, extensive field research in Beslan, Chechnya, andIngushetia, and dozens of interviews with hostages, witnesses, relatives, negotiators, andinvestigators, this report will analyze the various myths and contradictory accounts of the attack,with particular reference to the failed negotiations.

The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) is the leadingprofessional forum in the United Kingdom for those concerned with national and international

defence and security.

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