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Ossetian Police Search for Provocateurs
// But Can't Find Them
Investigation
The Ossetian police are convinced that the tragedy in Beslan was just the first stage of a wide-scale diversion that has been carefully planned by terrorist leaders. Its minimal goal is to re-ignite old Ossetian-Ingushetian conflicts and maximally it will spread war throughout the North Caucasus. So far, everything is going according to plan. Sergey Dyupin reports.
Investigators are sure that the gang under the command of the Colonel (Polkovnik in Russian – his identity is still not known exactly) was nothing but cannon fodder for a bigger action organized by Shamil Basaev. The children taken hostage in School No. 1 were doomed because their captors were not negotiators, as had been the case with the audience of Nord-Ost, but suicidal terrorists. But the terrorists themselves may not have understood the role they were playing.
“Their assignment was to distract federal forces from Chechnya and stretch them over two fronts,” all local law enforcement representatives I was able to reach told me practically word for word. Their demands to withdraw forces from Chechnya and free the rebels arrested for the attack in Ingushetia were deliberately impossible to meet and were made only to attract attention and gain time. Also, several hostages confirm that, when the Colonel spoke with someone on the telephone, he said repeatedly, “We've done our part, now it's your turn.” But the situation changed faster than the terrorists expected.
At the meetings and funerals being held throughout the Republic of North Ossetia, propagandists are calling for revenge. Law enforcement thinks that they are agents of Basaev, although no charges are being made against any of them at the moment. People are blaming the Ingush, the authorities and North Ossetian president Aleksandr Dzasokhov for everything that happened. Society has passed its verdict on Dzasokhov: he's not a man. In the Caucasus, that is strong condemnation. But those are the emotions. People are directing their questions to the North Ossetian police.
It has become known, for instance, that, on the day of the attack on the school, the republic's police force was on alert: no vacations, days off or holidays were allowed. That was because of a telegram from the Russian Ministry of the Interior received on August 18 and distributed to all heads of its regional departments. The telegram said that information had been obtained that Chechen rebels were planning a large-scale attack of the same type as Basaev carried out in Budennovsk. The object of the attack could be a government agency or large group of people, and that there was no more detailed information available.
The police in Beslan took the appropriate measures. They increased their watch at the local administration, the regional Interior Department and the train station. Security was beefed up at hospitals and highways and they did not forget about schools. Two or three police officers were posted in front of every school. Everyone knows what happened then.
It is now known in detail that, on the night of the attack, the Colonel and his rebels gathered at the southern edge of Suzhensk Forest near the villages of Khurikau, Inarki, Ksedakh and Sagopshi. That area, half an hour from Beslan by car and near the border of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, is considered neutral – officially part of North Ossetia, its population is mainly Ingushetian. That is also why the police of both republics prefer to avoid the area. There are two roads leading from Khurikau to Beslan. The main road intersects the village of Batakayurt and is under tight control by both North Ossetian and Ingushetian authorities. There is also a narrow gravel road that runs through the village of Razdzog. Beslan residents say that traffic on that road is often heavier than on the main road, and consists exclusively of those who prefer to avoid the police. Most often, that means drivers of unauthorized gasoline tank trucks. There are no police outposts on that road, but so-called “wild” police brigades are always present. Their main interest is collecting “customs fees” from smugglers.
Investigators have not obtained hard evidence that the terrorists paid their way on that road. But every driver in Beslan is sure that it would be impossible to travel through the forest and Razdzog for free, especially with the load the Colonel was carrying.
The Ossetians are dissatisfied with the special forces as well as the police. Relatives of the hostages, who did not leave the scene for even a minute, are convinced that the real heroes are the troops from the FSB antiterrorist center who flew in from Moscow. “The storm was truly unplanned,” said one eyewitness. “When the first explosion was heard and children ran out the doors from the gym, the Alfa and Vympel forces were either in training or receiving some sort of instructions and they rushed the school without any orders. A head-on attack was hopeless. Everyone understood that. But the troops were able to cover all the points of fire with their bodies within seconds. They are real men. Every one of them who died probably saved many children.”
There are serious questions being addressed to the republic's FSB department by both civilians and the police. “Several minutes after the siege began, every member of the district police force, without exception, was in front of the school,” a Beslan criminal investigator told Kommersant. “People reacted instantly, without orders, they just dropped their business and came. One of our men even managed to shot one of the terrorists with his pistol. We were ready to storm the school on the morning of September 1. But, at the last moment, an order came from above not to try anything and to wait for the FSB. While we were waiting, the terrorists unpacked their arsenal and mined the building. By the time the FSB agents got here, the children were already doomed. That's what happened. The majority of them died from explosions and burns, not from gunfire.”
Now the Ossetians are convinced that they were betrayed by officials on all levels. All that remains is to find the guilty parties and seek vengeance. North Ossetian investigators are convinced that the culmination of this stage of the large-scale diversion planned by Islamic extremist leaders is near. Relatives of the victims of the terrorist act are on the brink of taking up arms. And they are going to take revenge on their Ingushetian neighbors first of all.
The anti-Ingush mood in the republic is being inflamed intentionally. “Have you heard the stories about how the explosives were planted there in the summer by Ingushetian itinerate workers?” an investigator asked me. He is working in the crowd, trying to count the provocateurs. “It has been positively established already that the terrorists brought all their arms and explosives with them. They tore up the floors to see what kind of cellar the building had, since troops could theoretically enter there. But the story of the accomplice workmen is being told in various versions still.”
They are also convinced in Beslan that the terrorists were driven there voluntarily from Khurikau by the “corrupt Ingushetian policeman” Usman Gurazhev. But he was very thoroughly investigated by the FSB and released.
There is much discussion of a mass exodus of North Ossetian Ingush on the eve of the attack in Beslan. “They ran away from here, and left their women children and old people. They knew we wouldn't touch their children,” Alan, a taxi driver recounts. “I alone made four trips from Khurikau then.” Alan thinks that all the Ingush in Beslan knew that the attack was being prepared, and not one of them wanted to warn their neighbors.
The police know nothing of this flight of the Ingush to their homeland. “After all that happened, many Ingush did decide to our republic temporarily,” a Beslan regional department of the interior officer stated. “Any cautious person would do the same in their places. After such a horrible act, it really was possible that they would have problems because of their nationality… We are looking of the provocateurs. They are practically calling for war and spreading extremely dangerous rumors in this situation. So far without success. To find the originators of the disinformation is impossible, because nobody will ever admit to it and, meanwhile, the situation is getting tenser very day.”
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Even Rebels Can Get Money for the Heads of Basaev and Maskhadov
The Russian special forces, who have offered a reward for information on the locations of Chechen terrorist leaders, are willing to work with members of illegal bands, stated Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, representative of the regional investigative staff of the antiterrorist operations department of the North Caucasus.
“The FSB will work with anyone, including members of illegal armed groups, without compromising their personal security or limiting their right to receive the full sum of the reward,” he said.
As has already been reported, the Russian FSB has offered a reward of 300 million rubles for information leading to the elimination of Shamil Basaev and Aslan Maskhadov.
Interfax
First Cases in Ingushetia Attack Reach Court
The North Caucasus Department of the General Prosecutor's Office has finished its investigation in the criminal case against 13 participants in the attack perpetrated in Ingushetia on the night of June 22 of this year. According to official data, 79 people were killed and 104 injured in that attack. The Ingushetian Prosecutor's Office reports that the case has been forwarded to the republic's supreme court. The material was presented in 57 volumes, and it mentions 250 victims.
The defendants, who are of various nationalities, are accused of terrorism, robbery, banditry and murder. The court has stated that, at the request of one of the defendants, the case will be heard by a jury.
The case of five other people facing accusations in that attack has already begun in the Supreme Court of Ingushetia. There are a total of about 30 people being held in that attack, and 30 more are still wanted.
ITAR-TASS
Sergey Dyupin
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 13, 2004
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