Violence overshadows Beslan siege anniversary

FIVE YEARS after the Beslan school siege killed 334 people, survivors and victims’ relatives say they fear another such attack as violence intensifies in Russia’s Caucasus republics.

Beslan marked the anniversary of the siege yesterday, as mourners laid flowers and candles in the ruins of the town’s School Number One, and left bottles of water in memory of victims – more than half of whom were children – who were denied anything to drink by their captors.

The memorial in the republic of North Ossetia took place just as the nearby region of Dagestan was rocked by a car bomb blast that killed at least one person and injured nine others, a day after Dagestani security forces said they killed an Algerian al-Qaeda operative in the area.

Dozens of policemen and soldiers have died in militant attacks in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya in recent weeks, and top local politicians have been killed and badly wounded.

After announcing the end of anti-terrorist operations in Chechnya in April, the Kremlin has been forced to admit that the security situation is deteriorating rapidly across the north Caucasus, which has been a hotbed of resistance to Moscow’s rule since Tsarist days. Federal and local leaders say the region is a target for Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda, while analysts say grinding poverty, endemic corruption and police brutality are also major factors in the current spike in violence.

In Beslan, many victims’ relatives are furious at the authorities’ refusal to hold an open investigation into an attack that saw about 30, mostly Chechen rebels, hold more than 1,000 people hostage in the school gymnasium for almost three days.

No official has resigned or been sacked over the catastrophic security and intelligence failures of Beslan, and numerous questions remain unanswered regarding who started the final shootout and whether excessive force used by police and soldiers added to the death toll.

All attempts to hold an independent inquiry into Beslan have been blocked by Moscow.

“Five-years ago, after Beslan, we thought that the world had to change,” said Valentina Ostaniy, who was at the besieged school with her son and nephew.

“But years later we see that nothing has changed. We are still afraid to send our children off to school because terror acts which have become yet more horrific and devious, take place in northern Caucasus every day.”

In the most prominent recent attacks, a truck bomb killed at least 25 people at a police station in Ingushetia, while the republic’s president was badly hurt in a car bomb blast and his construction minister was shot dead at his desk. Chechnya has witnessed several suicide bombings, and a prominent rights activist and a charity worker were murdered. No suspect has been caught.

Yesterday, a man blew up his car at a police checkpoint in Dagestan. Officials said he planned to launch a major attack on a large town in Dagestan, where police said they killed an al-Qaeda operative known as “Doctor Muhammed” on Monday.