Putin wants security rethink after school siege
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-06 14:48

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Saturday for a radical rethink of security forces' tactics against terror after the seizure of a school by Chechen militants ended in chaos and bloodshed.

As the death toll rose above 320 from the bloody denouement when troops stormed the southern Russian school Friday, Putin urged his countrymen to be strong in the face of a string of devastating attacks linked to Chechen separatists.

The small town of Beslan, which Putin visited briefly before dawn Saturday, was shattered by the carnage, in which 155 children died as well as parents and teachers. Barely a family was left untouched.

Some in Beslan vented their anger against the Kremlin leader for visiting the town so briefly and accused him of posturing for television cameras instead of meeting its traumatized residents.

"He saw no one and talked to no one," said Boris, whose neighbor and her family disappeared. "He just wanted to show the world how young and handsome he is but he hasn't helped and he won't help and he can't stop this happening again."

In the nearby city of Vladikavkaz, hundreds of distraught Ossetians queued outside the overwhelmed morgue to look for missing relatives among the lines of bodies.

Dozens of corpses, their skin the color of powdered milk, lay outside the morgue on stretchers. Most were children or women, their naked bodies covered with black tarpaulin or plastic sheets.

Relatives accompanied by nurses picked their way along row after row of stretchers, holding handkerchieves or gauze masks to their faces against the stench.

Many of the victims had been held inside the school gym by their captors for two days without food or water before being killed. It was the grimmest outcome of a hostage-taking in modern times.

In a somber television address Putin, dressed in a dark suit and standing beside a Russian flag, denounced the gunmen who attacked "defenseless children."

Right To Demand More

But, in the first criticism of the troops' handling of the siege, he said Russians had a right to demand more from security forces in times of crisis.

"We must create a much more effective system of security. We must demand that our security forces act at a level appropriate to the level and scope of the new threats," he said.

This demanded "an effective anti-crisis management system -- including fundamentally new approaches in the activity of the security forces."

Putin said Russia had been punished for its failure to adapt to new defense and security needs and must take rapid action to put this right.

"We have to admit we showed no understanding of the danger of processes occurring in our own country and the world at large," he said. "We failed to react appropriately to them and, instead, displayed weakness. And the weak are always beaten."

Grief, anger and uncertainty mingled in Beslan, a normally sleepy town of 30,000, a day after the crisis ended with half-naked and wounded children dodging hostage takers' bullets as they fled and security forces stormed the school building.

"Everyone in this town has lost someone," said Alan, looking for news of his sister who had been at the school. "What they say on television is a lie. There could be 600 dead."

Blinking repeatedly to stop tears, Alan walked through crowds of pale, exhausted people, searching desperately for news of relatives and friends in the town's squares and street corners.

Control Of North Caucasus

The Kremlin leader, speaking after a week of calamities linked to Chechen separatists, pledged to restore control over the North Caucasus, the part of southern Russia which includes the turbulent region of Chechnya.

But Putin, who rejects any notion of talks with separatists, made no direct reference to Chechnya in his 10-minute address.

Officials announced they had completed their search of the charred ruins of Middle School No. 1, and confirmed for the first time media reports that the gunmen had taken more than 1,000 people hostage when they stormed the school Wednesday.

A total of 26 militants, 10 of them Arabs according to Russian officials, had seized the school, said Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky. All had been killed.

Putin said earlier he had ordered Beslan and the surrounding region of North Ossetia sealed off in follow-up operations. He declared Monday and Tuesday days of mourning.

"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of our North Caucasus," he told security officials.

"Anyone who feels sympathetic toward such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism."

His harsh tone suggested no weakening of his determination to crush the rebellion in mainly Muslim Chechnya and keep it within Russia, using tactics criticized by rights activists.