Motives

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 458.

It is not just the identity of the attackers that is unclear. Neither were their demands, which were never clearly articulated to the media. Initially, they were reported to have called for the release of fighters arrested in Ingushetia in connection with the June raid. Then they were said to have called for the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya. On the second day of the siege, Russian sources said the attackers did not appear to be making any clear demands. Then - on the third day - the North Ossetian leader said they were demanding independence for Chechnya. There seems to be no doubt that some of them regarded the attack on the school as a suicide mission. For the women reported to have been wearing belts of explosives - probably widows or relatives of men killed by Russian forces in the Caucasus - revenge and martyrdom may have been more important than political goals.

Radicalism

But despite all the confusion surrounding the Beslan outrage, the incident would appear to underline some trends. One is that instability appears to be spreading out from Chechnya again - whether or not Chechens have been directly involved in all cases. There were the attacks in Ingushetia in June - carried out by Chechens and Ingush. In the last two weeks, there has been a wave of deadly attacks in Moscow. This time the target was North Ossetia, one of the most loyal of Russia's North Caucasian republics. Earlier, there was a series of attacks on trains in southern Russia. This all lends grim credibility to Chechen warnings that they have the power to step up guerrilla attacks in Russia. Secondly, the horror of the Beslan attack - in which the primary victims were innocent children - indicates that Russia's enemies in the North Caucasus are becoming increasingly radical. Reliable reports from Chechnya suggest that Mr Maskhadov, though he remains the titular chief of the rebels, has been sidelined by radicals such as Basayev and Umarov and Saudi-born Abu Al-Walid - the leader of the Chechen Islamists, and reportedly the distributor of funding from the Muslim world. It will be no consolation to the Russian authorities if Basayev - who made his name seizing a maternity hospital in southern Russia in 1995 and orchestrated the seizure of hostages at a Moscow theatre two years ago - turns out not to have been involved in the Beslan attack. That will just show that there are more wild and dangerous warlords out there than previously thought.