September 05, 2004

Russian school death toll rises above 350 as families curse Putin

The death count in the Russian school massacre rose above 350 yesterday, including 156 children. Officials said that the final figure would be even higher and disclosed that all 35 hostage-takers had been killed.

They continued to claim that 10 of the terrorists were Arabs, although there was little concrete information about any of those involved.
[...]
Last night, 434 wounded hostages were still in hospital, including 247 children and 85 adults in a critical condition.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, declared tomorrow and Tuesday official days of mourning and, pledging to fight back, admitted that his security forces had been unprepared for the terrorists' "full-scale war".
[What he means is that the Civilized world was unprepared for the killers to go after the ultimate "soft target" of a childrens' school.--J.T.]

He denounced gunmen who attacked "defenceless children". But he said in a televised speech: "We are dealing with a direct intervention of international terror against Russia, with a total, cruel and all-powerful war which again and again takes the lives of our fellow countrymen.
[...]
Chechen activists want independence from Russia and most want to make Chechnya a Muslim state ruled by Islamic Sharia law.
[This is the jihadis' M.O. all over the world, which we're all only too familiar with by now from Chechnya to the "Palestinian areas" to Kosovo to Afgahnistan to Iraq to the Philippines.
It begins as a "freedom fight" and devolves into militarized and radicalized Islamic jihad.--Jen]
[...]
Bewildered relatives gathered at Beslan's cinema where officials were due to provide details of the dead and injured. Many were angry at the way the crisis had been handled by security forces.
[I must admit from what I saw on TV, the security was a mess and I read that Russia had 10,000 troops in the city but there was no security cordon around the school and panicked parents rushed in when the shooting started, probably resulting in more deaths.]
[...]
Officials said that most victims died in the school's gymnasium on Friday, either from the explosions that brought down the roof - mined by the hostage-takers - or in the battles between soldiers and captors that followed.

The school will be demolished and replaced by a memorial to the victims. A new school will be built elsewhere.

The storming of the school by Russian forces caused pandemonium. Many of the 1,000 pupils, parents and teachers were carried out, drenched in blood, as bullets flew. The authorities said that they had been forced to send in troops when the gunmen fired on fleeing children.

There were more explosions and shooting as escaped terrorists were hunted down, with one reported to have been dragged from an ambulance and kicked to death.
[We can hardly condemn the people of Beslan for doing this!]

Western governments offered sympathy to Mr Putin and the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the massacre had tested his faith.
[Such as it is, although I think he's more of a Druid than he is an Anglican.
This awful man has almost singlehandedly killed what was left of the Church of England and any moral and religious authority it had. Idiot!]
But the European Union called for an explanation of "how this tragedy could have happened". The Russians described the request as "blasphemous".

The ultimate tragedy--after having hundreds of your children terrorized, murdered and maimed, the ultimate terror has got to be being "terrorized" by the craven EU!
As we know from trying to protect our own "soft targets" and our children and even we adults here in the U.S., there are too many "soft targets" to put tons of security on each and every possible place there might be a terror attack and the terrorists know this.
Furthermore, while this was quite a shock to the EU and certainly to the Russians, child murder at the hands of terrorists has been going on in Israel for years, if not decades.
My prayers are joined with millions of other Americans' for the souls of the victims and for their families.
We grieve with the people of Beslan and I know that President Bush offered any and all help we can give to President Putin.
I hope that it doesn't take another attack within Russia for Putin to fully ally with us in the War on Terror and I must admit, I was suprised that Putin didn't do this after the Moscow theatre siege 2 years ago.
Tragically, Putin has tried to deal with the Al Queda-linked killers as an "internal problem" while he helped arm Saddam in Iraq and the mullahs in Iran and while he entertained Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in Moscow for "talks" almost exactly a year ago, marking the first time a Saudi leader had visited the Kremlin in over 70 years. Just today, Russia issued a statement, in direct opposition to the U.S. at the U.N., pledging their "respect" for Lebanon's "sovereignity," even though Lebanon is the mere client state of terrorist stronghold Syria.

Meanwhile, it's almost certain that the Beslan attack was funded and planned by Al Queda.

The British, like their American cousins, were horrified by this attack, realizing only too well that it was something that could happen just as "easily" with all the attendant mayhem in the UK, but if any of them doubted, one of their leading Islamic clerics made this public statement right after the Beslan attack:
Cleric supports targeting children

An extremist Islamic cleric based in Britain said yesterday that he would support hostage-taking at British schools if carried out by terrorists with a just cause.
[The "just cause" to be defined by the clerics, of course.]

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the spiritual leader of the extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, said that holding women and children hostage would be a reasonable course of action for a Muslim who has suffered under British rule.

It now becomes quite clear that no-one, not even our innocent children, are to be spared by the Enemy, and that even if you're not a little Jewish child in an Israeli school can you take your safety and security for granted.
As Britain's The Sun put it so bluntly and so well,Terror cannot stoop lower:

[...]
There is no lower place for terrorists to stoop. They’ve reached the floor of hell.
[...]
What happened next has far reaching consequences for the world as a whole. From this point on, nothing and no one can be considered untouchable.
[...]
I can’t imagine it. I don’t want to imagine it. And I hope no parent or child ever has to go through it again.

That’s why the major powers in the world must unite and fight global terrorism.

May God rest the souls of those innocent children and their parents and teachers who lost their lives in Beslan.
May He empower us to get the Islamist baby killers before they can murder another human being for "jihad."
On to Victory.