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Vika, 13, and Olya, 7, are trying to heal in a hospital near Beslan. They don't feel lucky, but they are. They didn't get killed when Chechen terrorists held them and 1,200 others in their school gym for three days, or when one of the terrorists' bombs went off inside, or even when, as the girls fled in panic, the terrorists started shooting. Three hundred twenty-five people are confirmed dead so far, more than half of them children. But with many still missing, the death toll could reach 500. Olya, formerly the star of her class, isn't talking or eating much. Vika shifts abruptly between calm and anger, and speaks dispassionately about death. Her father, Taymuraz, sitting at her bedside, names one of her classmates. "Dead," she asserts confidently. "He was too far inside the hall. He couldn't have got out alive." She's right.
Russia is trying to heal, too, and its people are showing the same mix of numbed pain and fury as Vika. Vladimir Putin worked hard last week to maintain an air of authority and strength, but faced the most intense pressure of his presidency. As normally docile Moscow newspapers charged the Kremlin with a campaign of lies about the siege, he finally agreed to a parliamentary inquiry. He furiously blamed Islamic terrorists for the atrocity, refusing to acknowledge that his hard-line Chechnya policies might have helped stoke the terror that has killed more than 2,000 Russians since he came to power. Government-organized demonstrations in Moscow, St. Petersburg and a score of other Russian cities condemned the slaughter and demanded an overhaul of the security apparatus, and in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz, 3,000 angry protesters gathered outside President Alexander Dzasokhov's office, calling for his resignation and for revenge against the ethnic Ingush, some of whom are believed to have been among the terrorists.
As Russia and the world try to come to grips with what happened, many questions remain, both about the government's conduct during the siege and about Putin's policies in Chechnya. Here's a look at some of the crucial questions surrounding the massacre at Beslan's School No. 1.
DID THE KREMLIN LIE ABOUT THE CRISIS?
When the siege started on Sept. 1, Russian authorities first said there were 120 hostages, then 354. Locals knew the number was far higher. The Kremlin also asserted that the terrorists had made no demands, when in fact they gave a letter to former Ingushetian President Ruslan Aushev demanding that Putin declare a cease-fire in Chechnya and withdraw Russian troops. Several sources told TIME the letter bore the name (but not the signature) of Shamil Basayev, the Chechen extremist who masterminded the Moscow theater siege. But Putin blamed the attack on global jihad, ignoring the nationalist roots of the crisis. In an interview with Western journalists, including TIME, he claimed that nine of the hostage takers were from the "Arab world" and one from Muslim Africa — a charge that has not been proved and which his officials have quietly dropped.
The misinformation about the number of hostages and the terrorists' demands seems a classic case of Soviet-style news management. By linking the terrorists to al-Qaeda, Putin wants to join George W. Bush's global war on terror and deprive the Chechen cause of international legitimacy. Of course, by doing what they did in Beslan, the Chechen extremists have damaged their cause more than Putin ever could.
WHAT UNLEASHED THE FINAL STORM?
Given the Kremlin's disinformation campaign, its assertion that a terrorist bomb triggered the brutal showdown has been greeted with some skepticism. But the evidence is strong that the final battle was started by accident, possibly when a bomb hanging off a basketball hoop came unstuck and fell to the floor. Observers agree that after the first blast, armed locals started firing while children clambered out of the burning building. As chaos ensued, some witnesses say terrorists shot fleeing hostages in the back; other accounts claim the children were cut down in the cross-fire.
Russian forces were planning a rescue operation, but didn't expect to storm the school for days. A source close to the Federal Security Service's (FSB) crack Alpha troops, which had been deployed to Beslan, told TIME that when the fighting started only six Alphas were near the school, performing reconnaissance. The others were training at a location about 20 minutes away, and their rush to the scene was delayed when one of their armored personnel carriers broke down. Sources in Moscow say there was a secret command post in Beslan run by the chief of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, but people closer to the scene deny it. Taymuraz Mansurov, chairman of the North Ossetian parliament, whose children were hostages and who was deeply involved in the government's strategy, insists there was no secret headquarters. Indeed, he is deeply critical of Moscow for sending "second or third ranking people" to Beslan.
IS A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT POSSIBLE?
The U.S. and other governments have called for political negotiations, but Putin has ruled them out. "I don't tell you to meet Osama bin Laden and invite him to Brussels or the White House for talks," he fumed in the interview last week. "No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to child killers." Putin regularly says Chechnya is in a period of "normalization." In fact, the conflict has grown more virulent and entrenched as a new, more radicalized band of Chechen fighters
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Instead of direct Kremlin rule, Putin has tried a policy of "Chechenization" — getting pro-Moscow locals to take more responsibility for security — but his hand-picked president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was blown up last May. Kadyrov's son Ramzan is now widely acknowledged to be the real power behind replacement President Alu Alkhanov. His troops, the "Kadyrovtsi," are reviled for their own reign of terror — kidnappings, murders and lootings.
Under such conditions, Basayev has no trouble finding recruits. Young fighters speak of desiring martyrdom; websites, videos and songs exalt them. As a result, more moderate Chechen leaders like deposed President Aslan Maskhadov, who condemned the Beslan atrocity, have seen their power base erode. "The only thing Maskhadov commands are his bodyguards," one guerrilla source sneered last week. Putin has undercut the very people who might have brokered peace. "The only thing we want is to stop shooting for five minutes and sit down to talk," says Akhmed Zakayev, Maskhadov's spokesman in London. "But the war is breeding another sort of people who don't know anything except the drilled suras [chapters] of the Koran."
Putin told journalists last week that he would consider holding parliamentary elections in Chechnya soon, even that he was "moderately optimistic" about creating a successful state there. But it is an optimism few share. And the fallout from Beslan could reach outside Chechnya, too. Tensions among Ossetians, Ingush and other ethnic groups are high. "The terrorists achieved their objective in Beslan," says a Kremlin source. "They exposed the Russian side as inept, weak and hapless — which we are — and they blew up the Caucasus. Another such push, and we'll plunge down the precipice."
WILL PUTIN LAUNCH A CRACKDOWN?
The Chief of the General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, declared last week that Russia "will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world." But most of the terrorists Russia faces are homegrown. "It's pure p.r.," says the Kremlin insider. "What are they going to strike with? Even combat troops in Chechnya have choppers so decrepit that I was afraid to fly in them."
The Duma is preparing a raft of antiterror laws that will likely restrict people's freedom to travel, increase police powers to search and seize, and tighten immigration controls. Most Russians would probably welcome the new restrictions if they stopped the bombings. But in Russia, money can put people above the law. Last week, it turned out that many of the terrorists killed or captured in Beslan had recently been arrested for serious crimes — and released for no good reason. "Their families regularly buy them out," the Kremlin source says. Corruption is so rife "that, say, two sections of the same security department will be working against each other because they're paid by opposing factions. It's a mess." Putin "won't be able to change anything," says Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "How do you go about clamping harsher discipline on a corrupt system?"
Back in beslan, the shattered survivors sit silently in their apartments, lost in grief. The TV news carries reports about aid pouring in from overseas, the government and ordinary citizens. But there are no images of it arriving, because it hasn't — the aid has been stalled partly by red tape, and partly, some locals are sure, by thieving officials.
Inside one apartment, Lena has set bread, salt and a candle before the picture of Inna, her lovely, murdered 16-year-old. She is paralyzed with sorrow, unable to speak. "Say just one word for me, Lena," implores a neighbor. "Go ahead, cry. The whole world is crying." After long minutes of coaxing, Lena manages only, "My little girl." Out in the courtyard, Vika and Olya's next-door neighbor, a 9-year-old boy who escaped the school with his mother, is playing with a new toy he bought after the siege: an authentic-looking pistol, complete with removable magazine. He practices shooting a target, and over and over again slams the magazine home with the palm of his hand.
- J.F.O. McALLISTER and PAUL QUINN-JUDGE | Beslan
- After the Beslan school slaughter, the Kremlin's handling of the siege comes under fire. What went wrong — and what's coming next