[Excerpt: Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement that those arrested were suspected of helping stage the hostage-taking in Beslan where assailants held more than 1,000 hostages for nearly three days. The siege ended September 3 in gunfire and explosions, nearly half of the 330 victims were children.]
http://64.236.16.116/2005/WORLD/europe/03/04/beslan.killings.ap/index.html 5 Beslan siege suspects killed Friday, March 4, 2005 Posted: 6:19 AM EST (1119 GMT) MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russian authorities have killed five people and arrested four others suspected of aiding the hostage-taking attack on a school in southern Russia last year that killed 330 people, prosecutors said Friday. Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement that those arrested were suspected of helping stage the hostage-taking in Beslan where assailants held more than 1,000 hostages for nearly three days. The siege ended September 3 in gunfire and explosions, nearly half of the 330 victims were children. Shepel said that five other suspects were killed while resisting arrest. The statement did not say when or where the raid took place. The suspects were accused of being involved in the school raid "at the stage of its preparation," Shepel said. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the school seizure and other latest terror attacks in Russia. Anger has grown over the slow pace of the investigation, particularly among residents of Beslan. Many suspect authorities are hiding information about the attackers and how they were so easily able to slip into town with a huge quantity of weapons. Officials say 32 people took part in the attack, and that 31 of them were killed and one detained. Shepel said that the suspects arrested in the latest raid were also accused of involvement in an attack on police facilities in Russia's southern region of Ingushetia near Chechnya in June, in which about 90 people were killed. He added that a suspected al Qaeda liaison in Chechnya, Abu Dzeit, a Saudi Arabia national, who died in a Russian security sweep last month, was a key organizer of the school seizure and other terror attacks. In a separate operation conducted by local police force in Chechnya, one rebel was killed and seven others were captured, Ruslan Alkhanov, the interior minister in Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration, said, according to the Interfax news agency. One police officer was wounded. President Vladimir Putin has responded to terror attacks by ending elections of regional governors and individual lawmakers, arguing that Russia needs to strengthen the federal government to avert terror attacks. He also has ordered to draft legislation tightening security and giving extra powers to law-enforcement agencies. The Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on Friday unanimously approved a bill aimed at strengthening aviation security in the final, third reading. The bill, which needs to be endorsed by the upper house and signed by Putin to become law, tightens requirements for airport personnel and gives the authorities broader powers to increase security at airports. Officials said the bill was necessary to close loopholes that allowed suicide attackers to bomb two Russian passenger planes that almost simultaneously exploded in the air in August, killing 90 people. A police officer was arrested and charged with negligence after he released the two women suspected of carrying bombs onto the planes without inspecting their belongings. A ticket scalper and an airline employee who got women on the plane were also arrested. enditem ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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