Analysis: The hostage-takers

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 442.

Confusion reigns over the identity of the group who seized the school in North Ossetia taking hostage more than 1,000 children and their parents and teachers. The Russian authorities are telling one story, and Chechen sources are telling another. It may take time for the truth to emerge.

The Russian version says the hostage-takers were a multi-national group linked to the radical Chechen rebel commanders Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov, funded by al-Qaeda.

The Chechen version, as put forward by the Chechen rebel envoy in Europe, Ahmed Zakayev, is that the attackers may have been Ossetians, Russians or Ingush - but not Chechens. The pro-rebel Kavkaz Center website suggests the leaders may have been Ossetian Islamists - from a home-grown militant group or Jama'at. Most Ossetians are Christian or pagan, but a minority is Muslim. The two accounts are not in fact mutually exclusive. Either would explain the reported presence of Arabs among the attackers. Also two men Russian forces believe may have been among the ringleaders are Magomet Yevloyev, said by some sources to be an Ingush, and Vladimir Khodov, a resident of North Ossetia (they are thought to have used the codenames Magas and Abdulla). Both reportedly took part in the attacks on the Ingush interior ministry in June, under the leadership of Basayev and Umarov.