Russia has accepted a European Court of Human Rights ruling instructing it to pay $3.5 million to the victims of the 2004 Beslan terrorist attack.
The ECHR says Russia ignored intelligence indicating an attack was likely, and then used excessive force to resolve the crisis. While the ruling is correct on both counts, the hostage rescue element was the most glaring failure. Many mistakes were made that first week in September 2004.
The crisis began when more than 30 Chechen-Islamists seized a crowded school in southern Russia. Armed with assault rifles, the terrorists grouped their hostages in a gymnasium and wired the building with explosives. Utterly fanatical, the terrorists refused to give their hostages, many of whom were children, any water, nor allowed them regular restroom breaks. The situation in the gymnasium rapidly became dire.
But that was just the start of the tragedy; the Russian government’s response was also a disaster. Numerous conflicting command structures were established, and various groups of armed federal, local, and militia forces surrounded the school.
It was the antithesis of good tactical methodology. Basic counterterrorism doctrine should have meant a senior FSB officer was appointed the sole site-commander, that the school’s outer perimeter was secured with Army forces, and that special forces were deployed as an inner cordon. Instead, Vladimir Putin ignored the crisis, the different armed units intermingled, commanders argued over strategy, and furious, armed family members approached the gymnasium.
It was to be Russia’s next major counterterrorism failure: Just two years earlier, 133 civilians were killed when Russian forces responded to a Moscow hostage crisis by pumping toxic levels of an anesthetic compound into the target building.
In Beslan, everything was set for disaster.
And on the third day of the crisis, the final calamity arrived. Following an unexplained series of explosions, gunfire broke out between the terrorists and local militia. Had the FSB’s elite Alpha Group special forces unit been given complete tactical control, it would have activated an immediate action plan to save as many hostages as possible. Instead, the chaotic melee escalated and various army units fired heavy-caliber weapons at the gymnasium.
By the time the special forces were able to make entry to the gymnasium, many of the hostages were already dead. Still, as much as their commanders failed, individual special operators performed great feats of courage. In his excellent book, Beslan: The Tragedy of School No. 1, Timothy Philips notes one operator who stormed across the gymnasium under heavy fire to kill the terrorists and save the remaining hostages.
Ultimately, however, at least 334 civilians were killed, including 186 children.
