The Beslan Massacre (56k warning/graphic images warning)

[Von Mudra]

No politics, no bs, remember the fallen, please.

Today September 1st is the Second Anniversary of the Beslan Massacre that happened from Septemeber 1-3, 2004. Chechens seized a Russian School in the city of Beslan and kept hostage the people inside for three days while there was a shootout between the Russian Military and the Chechens. The end result was the death of 359 people (186 of them being children) and about 200 people were missing and 719 were wounded.

Images like that do not belong in a family forum - MG42Maniac

[foodmaniac2003]

My god...

I thought these Russian terrorists stopped after the movie theater hostage incindent...

[9thDogbert]

How can that happen to children..

[[nl]Invincible]

Can remember that quite clearly, didnt know its already 2 years ago!
I realy dont understand why peaple do this..

[Cap'n Rommel]

Originally Posted by foodmaniac2003

My god...

I thought these Russian terrorists stopped after the movie theater hostage incindent...

you should wach more CNN son, or any other news channel for that sake.

Originally Posted by [nl]Invincible

Can remember that quite clearly, didnt know its already 2 years ago!
I realy dont understand why peaple do this..

2 years!!, I remember it like it was 6 month ago

[Gauntlet]

*waits for moderator to come remove the pictures*

Anyway, 2 whole years ago? Geez. Time flies away!

And I must congratulate the Ruskies for their work. Everyone goes on complaining about the useless Russian Spec Ops, but who can blame them? Fighting ~40 well armed terrorists in a small space like a school would create alot of casualities.

[MkH^]

Well, in the cases of Beslan and the Moscow theatre incident, a 500lbs airplane bomb would have had the same results as Spetsnaz' special operations. Not very convincing in my opinion. If it would have been a case of a SAS or GSG-9 operation for example, I think the results would have been very different.

[Gauntlet]

How come? GSG9 and SAS have never had their chances on large scale anti-terror missions like that.

The Iran Embassy Siege with 6 terrorists and ~20 hostages is the closest the SAS comes, and for the GSG-9 would have to be that airplane down in Somalia were they killed four badly prepared terrorists and rescued all ~80 hostages. Both operations were very succesfully conducted, but sadly none of these two actions comes even close to Beslan or Moscow Theatre when it boils down to the scale of the operation.

[RexRaptor]

Originally Posted by 9thDogbert

How can that happen to children..

Ever heard the phrase 'The Ends justifies the Means'? It's cold and logical, but it's true for all cases of 'terrorism'. Alternatively, ever heard the phrase 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'? That applies to each and every act.

[Pornska]

One the one hand I am horrified to know so many people ( and especially young children! ) died during the Beslan hostage.

The Russian special forces may not ( as with the Moscow theatre ) have taken the best action to taken down the terrorists, but I believe that they didn't have much choice but to go into action, even though I regret so many lives were lost due this.

It's always easy to say afterwards; ow, they did that totally wrong!, but who knows what would have happend if the special forces waited even longer; they might have blown up the entire school with everyone in it.