Beslan Hostage Crisis Documentary

[AdAstra2009]

Originally Posted by MT2008

As bad as this incident was, the Russian government's response was arguably worse - and just because of the number of people who died in the shootout. The crisis gave Putin an excuse to consolidate control over the Duma and the media under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Interestingly I was reading about a rumor that the Russian military summarily executed the terrorists who were not killed during the initial assault. No sympathy to them of course.

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by AdAstra2009

Interestingly I was reading about a rumor that the Russian military summarily executed the terrorists who were not killed during the initial assault. No sympathy to them of course.

That reminds me of what almost happened in the Iranian embassy siege in 1980. From The Guardian:

"Five of the six gunmen died in a hail of SAS bullets. One, Fowzi Nejad, survived by passing himself off as a hostage. Once "rescued" and taken outside the embassy, he was identified as a gunman by a real hostage and almost joined his dead comrades. One SAS soldier appeared to be about to drag him back inside the building until Horsfall advised him against it since the world was watching. "That would have been totally against policy and it would have been a very foolish thing for somebody to make that sort of mistake." "