RUSSIA: Russian Special Forces have a difficult task managing the hostage situation and, ultimately, eliminating the Chechen terrorists, writes Tom Clonan
With the death of one theatre-goer and the possibility that the gunmen will threaten to start killing hostages, the military operation in Moscow is one of containment.
Mr Vladimir Putin and the Russian authorities have deployed Special Forces to deal with the crisis. Their initial deployment will be covert and low-key, masked to a great extent by the massive police and Federal Security Bureau (FSB) security operation already in place.
The main activities undertaken by Special Forces troops in the early part of the siege will involve reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Observation posts will have been set up in nearby buildings to establish the whereabouts and movements of armed Chechen elements within the theatre. To this end, they will use night vision equipment to scan through windows into darkened hallways and rooms. They will also use thermal imaging equipment. After more than 24 hours of siege conditions, the Russians will be attempting to discover any defensive routines being adopted by the Chechens.
In addition to observation posts, night vision equipment and thermal imaging surveillance, they will also us electronic listening equipment to eavesdrop on Chechen activities and instructions to hostages. Those hostages who have been released will be thoroughly and aggressively debriefed to establish the strength, armament and modus operandi of the Chechens.
Any liaison with the Chechens at the scene for medical or humanitarian assistance will include undercover Special Forces personnel tasked with gathering information on the deployment of Chechens at sensitive entry points. All of these activities combined will give the Russians some indication of the location and disposition of captors and hostages.
The main difficulty at present is the sheer number of captors and hostages alike. Despite intensive intelligence gathering and psychological profiling at this point, it will be very difficult for the Russians to pinpoint the exact location of up to 40 armed Chechens in a five-storey building. It will also be difficult to establish the exact location of the 700 or so hostages. The Russians will have to assume that the Chechens will disperse hostages, booby traps and explosives throughout the building.
In this nightmare scenario, any attempt to rush the building will certainly result in civilian and Chechen casualties in significant numbers. However, now that the killing of hostages has started and in the absence of meaningful negotiation, an all-out assault may be the only course open to the Russian authorities. The manner in which Special Forces would mount such an operation would consist of a series of simultaneous assaults on the building. These concurrent multiple-entries of the building would then be followed with sector by sector clearance operations.
In other words, Russian Special Forces would attempt to force their way into the building in multiple teams or sections. They would either blast their way into the building with explosives or enter by windows at the upper and lower levels of the theatre simultaneously. Each team, based on previously gathered intelligence, would then clear a given sector of the building. The Special Forces teams would be heavily armed and, given the critical nature of the operation, likely to use maximum force in a relatively indiscriminate manner.
The concept of operations would give priority to two things. The first priority would be to locate the main body of hostages and eliminate any armed Chechen presence. The second priority, given the suspected presence of explosives, would be to get as many hostages as possible out of the building by the nearest exit route. The priorities thereafter would involve a further assessment of the threat posed to friendly forces and remaining hostages by explosives. There would then be a rapid re-grouping and reinforcement with a more deliberate assault on any remaining resistance.
An alternative approach would be to attempt to lure the Chechens out of the building by appearing to accede to demands and grant concessions. This course of action, similar to that employed during the Munich Olympics siege in 1972 might facilitate an attack in the open.
At this point, however, this seems an unlikely prospect given the apparent lack of progress in negotiations between the Russian authorities and the armed Chechens.
In the conduct of any such operation lies the risk that the Chechens may carry out their threat to detonate explosives throughout the building. Based on events since September 11th, security and military planners have had to build the concept of suicidal elements into their exercise scenarios and training programmes. The knowledge that the Chechens may at any moment vindicate their self-proclaimed status as martyrs will add an element of urgency, if not desperation, to attempts to deal with the present situation.
Tom Clonan is a retired Army officer with experience in the Middle East and former Yugoslavia. He is a fellow of the US-based Inter University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and lectures in the School of Media, at the Dublin Institute of Technology