(Washington Post) The commander of the guerrillas who seized a school in southern Russia last week shot one of his own men for balking at taking children hostage and later blew up two women in his band with the flip of an electronic control, Russian chief prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said Wednesday, offering the government's first detailed account of the hostage crisis. He confirmed that the attackers were aided by a local police officer. The bomb that blew up inside the school and triggered the deadly climax of the siege went off by accident when the hostage-takers were rearranging the explosives, he said. Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian armed forces chief of staff, asserted, "We will take steps to eliminate terrorist bases in any region of the world."
2004-09-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive