Hostage-Taking Routine Tactic Among Chechen Rebels

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the hostage crisis in a North Ossetian school in Beslan, near the border to Chechnya, that ended bloodily on Friday. The Russian authorities are still tight-lipped about the identity of the hearvily-armed raiders.

But there remains little doubt that the perpetrators have links to Chechen separatists who have been fighting Russian troops in the restive North Caucasus region since 1999.

Russian media have speculated that the gunmen could belong to separatist forces under Magomed Yevloyev, an Ingush militant who is believed to have led a mass assault on the neighboring province of Ingushetia in June. The hostage-takers have also reportedly conveyed to one of the mediators in the crisis that Chechnya must be an independent state.

Hostage-taking commonly used tactic

One key link between the school captors and Chechen separatists is the hostage-taking, a tactic that has been increasingly favored and deployed by Chechen rebels ever since Russian forces marched into the breakaway republic of Chechnya at the end of 1994 to prevent its secession.

The seizures have become increasingly bold over the years. They ar often accompanied by political and tactical demands and target some of civilian society's most vulnerable sectors, as evidenced by the school hostage-taking this week.

In 1995, Chechen rebels took some 2,000 hostages at a hospital near Chechnya in the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, demanding Russia end the war. About 100 people were killed in the raid and dozens more died when Russian troops unsuccessfully stormed the hospital.

A year later, a Chechen rebel band held up to 3,000 people in a raid on another hospital in the region of Dagestan. At least 40 people were killed. With a promise of safe passage, the guerillas released more hostages and headed back to Chechnya with the rest. But following a confrontation with Russian troops on the Chechen border, 78 more people were killed.

In the midst of that crisis, Chechen sympathizers held 255 passengers on a Black Sea ferry for three days. The gunmen threatened to blow up the ship, but surrendered after four days.

Expatriate kidnappings and killings

After the first Chechen war ended in 1996, the province slipped into lawlessness and kidnappings became common as rebel warlords fell out with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

During that time, victims included British aid workers, who were freed in 1998 after a year in captivity, and four engineers who were kidnapped but later found beheaded. An American missionary was also held hostage for seven months and released in July 1999.

In 1998 security firm Kroll Associates UK said that there were about 100 expatriates being held hostage in the region.

Theater siege a horror

When war resumed in 1999, there was an increased spate of hostage-taking.

Three people were killed when Saudi Arabian security forces stormed a plane, which was diverted to Medina after it was hijacked by Chechen rebels as it flew from Istanbul to Moscow in March 2001.

A week later, several pro-Chechen gunmen seized about 120 tourists at a luxury Istanbul hotel in protest against the war.

In July 2001, up to 30 people were held on a bus in southern Russia by a Chechen man demanding the release of five Chechens who had been captured in a previous hijacking.

In May 2002, a lone gunman held about 10 people hostage, again at an Istanbul hotel. They were all released unharmed.

Probably the worst hostage-takings in recent Russian history was the theater siege of October 2002, when Chechen separatists targeted the audience of a musical show in Moscow. The militants' demands were not met and all were killed when Russian special troops stormed the theater. During the raid, 129 hostages also died, almost all of whom succumbed to the knockout gas pumped into the theater.

Links to al Qaeda?

Intelligence experts believe the Chechen separatist movement has contacts to terrorist network al Qaeda. For years, Muslim volunteers are known to have traveled to Chechnya to join the battle, reportedly after attending training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In October 2002, a man suspected of helping to carry out the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington told a German court that the alleged leaders of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had wanted to fight in Chechnya.

One of the main Chechen field commanders, an Arab called Khattab was believed to have a veteran of the Afghan mujahideen war against the Soviet Union. Khattab, who was killed by Russian forces in 2002, was said to have been in occasional telephone contact with Osama Bin Laden.