Russia Ready to Launch Pre-emptive Strikes Against Terror Worldwide

Radio Havana Cuba, 8 September 2004

Moscow, September 8 (RHC)— Russia's top general says that Moscow is ready to attack terrorist bases anywhere in the world, as security services put a ten million dollar bounty on two Checen rebels blamed for last week's school siege.

General Yuri Baluevsky, head of Russia's general staff, said that carrying out pre-emptive strikes “in any region of the world” does not mean that Moscow will launch nuclear strikes.

Meanwhile, at the scene of the siege in the southern town of Beslan, medical workers began the painstaking task of identifying more than 100 bodies burned beyond recognition in the explosions which ended the hostage crisis.

More than 1200 people were taken hostage in Beslan last week and at least 326 were killed and 727 wounded, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov told reporters yesterday—revising the death toll down from an earlier figure of 335. Only 210 bodies have been identified. In a report prepared for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the attorney general said that final figures for the number of dead could still rise, as a number of body fragments have been found.

The Russian security service has announced a ten million dollar reward for information leading to the “neutralization” of Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev, two Chechen separatist leaders.

Authorities have blamed the hostage crisis on “international terrorists”—something that critics said was a fig leaf to mask the failure of Russia's Chechen policy. But the siege and ensuing battle were the latest in a string of attacks against Russian forces since August 1st, when Aslan Maskhadov promised a fiercer war against Moscow's rule, although his London-based representative has denied he was behind Beslan. Russia had previously offered rewards of five million for Basayev and 30,000 dollars for Maskhadov.

One captured suspect said the hostage-takers at the school numbered around 30, including two women. Russia's attorney general said that at the beginning of the siege, several asked their leader why they had seized a school. According to Ustinov, he shot one of them dead.

Ustinov said the militants later tried to rewire their bombs but one exploded, triggering the storming of the school—something security analysts have strongly criticized as a bungled operation.

Russia's Izvestia daily, quoting troops who took part in the assault, said four of the hostage-takers were actually captured, including a woman. Previous reports said that all of the hostage-takers had been killed in the subsequent raid on the school.