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Tyler GroveModern Russian HistoryDecember 5, 2005

The Moscow Theatre Siege

Terrorism is alive around the world and one area where it is especially volatile isin Russia with the ongoing crisis in Chechnya. One event that was not the first and notthe most recent that was a catalyst was the takeover of a Moscow theatre in October of 2002.During the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the Chechnya declaredindependence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Some of the main reasons for Russianinfluence in the area are the several oil and gas lines in the territory. Boris Yeltsin actingon the advice of his advisors, who said that a war with Chechnya would be fast and popular, attacked Chechnya. The Russians were not prepared for the massive casualties,and the war was a humiliating loss for Yelsten. The first Chechen war ended with accordssigned in 1996, which declared that the national status would be decided by the end of 2001.In September 1999, a series of apartment bombings in Moscow sparked theRussian army to return to Chechnya, the second Chechen War began. Chechnya terroristswere immediately blamed for the attacks, but the Russian government failed to provideevidence linking them to the Chechnya terrorists. There are some alleged theories that itwas actually the Russian Government that bombed the apartments. Russia claimed

victory of the second war, yet many outsiders view that the second war has not yetreached a conclusion.Moscow considers the area vital to maintaining influence in the Caucasus region.Because of lack of information about Chechnya that is not provided by the Russiangovernment, many statistics are debatable. But one thing that is true is that the majorityof Chechens are Sunni Muslim. Before September 11

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there was worldwide outcry for the treatment of Chechnya by Russia, but after September 11

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this public outcry has beenmuted. After the “war on terror”, which solidified Putin as one of Bush’s allies. Putin hasdescribed the Chechens as having ties to international terrorism. The Taliban didrecognize the separatist government of Chechnya and even opened an embassy in Kabul, but it would only last one year with the downfall of the Taliban.One of the most deadly terrorist attacks occurred October 23, 2002. Chechenrebels stormed a theater during act II of a sold out performance at the theatre Nord-Ost.The siege began at approximately 9 pm when a blast was heard near the building andwitnesses reported gunfire. A few performers who were not on the stage at the time wereable to escape through a back window and called the police. One of the early newsreports told that as many as half of the terrorists were woman of “non-Slavic” descent(this was considered highly unusual), some of whom had explosives strapped to their bodies.

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According to Police, the gunmen identified themselves as members of the 29

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Division of the Chechen Army.

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A videotape was acquired by the media, and its messagewas that the terrorists demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces; they were

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http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/23/russia.siege/

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http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/dubrovka.shtml

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willing to die for their cause. They were led by Movsar Barayev who was the nephew of a slain Chechen military leader.In the first days of the event the terrorists released the Muslim members of the audience, some of the children in the audience, and a man with a heart condition, butto make sure that the world was watching, and would continue to watch, refused torelease anyone of non-Russian descent. They would release approximately 200 hostages before the siege was over. It was known that some of the hostages were from the UnitedKingdom, United States, and the European Union, this in turn garnered attention fromtheir respective embassies in Moscow.Early in the siege, two leading members of the Chechen community entered thetheatre in the hope of negotiating with the hostage takers, but this ended quickly with noresolutions. It was reported that the terrorists described themselves as “smertniki” – thosecondemned to death, or kamikaze.

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The captors declared that if their demands were notmet they would begin executing the hostages. They had placed explosives all over thetheatre, though none exploded.The captors set a deadline of 6 am Moscow time on the 26

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. On this morning at 5am, gunfire was heard, the authorities started to believe that the terrorists had startedkilling the hostages. The Russian solders that were in charge of the operation wereSpetsnaz commando unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB). The operation involved pumping an aerosol anesthetic into a hole in the wall, then waiting a half an hour for it togive off it effects, and then storming the building from all entrances. This tactic was used because the authorities thought that the rebels would start killing hostages as soon as theyrealized they were under attack.

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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,383909,00.html?cnn=yes

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