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| CHECHEN UNREST
| I was
confronted by a scene from hell as I entered the theatre |
27 October 2002 |
| Just after I arrived for
a new posting in Moscow, dozens of Chechens seized a theatre
one evening taking hostage more than 800 including many
children. Three days later, on a cold Saturday morning,
Spetsnaz special forces poured gas into the building.
It knocked out the hostage-takers but also killed around
130 of the hostages. With barely any Russian and a lot
of bluff I got to the front entrance of the theatre just
as rescue workers began to bring out the dying. |
| The Storm
troopers |
30 April 2004 |
| Julius Strauss joins Spetsnaz
as they patrol the shattered streets of the Chechen capital,
Grozny |
| `Russian
soldiers make us live like terrified dogs' |
3 May 2004 |
| In Chechnya itself the abuse
and killing still goes on. Many journalists travel seldom
to the republic, partly for security reasons, partly because
of Russian government threats to those that do. In the
spring of 2004 I travelled to Vedeno, the home town of
the terrorist Shamil Basayev, a place that western journalists
had not been to in two or three years to find fear and
brutality. |
| A ruthless
ruler who died the hard way |
10 May 2004 |
| Julius Strauss, who recently
interviewed Akhmad Kadyrov, found a leader with little
thought for the niceties of human rights. He was killed
yesterday in a massive bomb. |
| They ran
from the building, half naked and screaming with fear
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4 September 2004 |
On 1st September 2004
more than 30 Islamic terrorists, many of them Chechens,
took more than 1,200 hostages in a school in Beslan,
North Ossetia. For three days they endured appalling
conditions. Then on the third day there was an accidental
explosion and a fire-fight broke out.
I ran around a security cordon and towards the school.
For more than an hour I was alone surrounded only by
medical workers and soldiers as bullets ricocheted off
walls and the dead and dying were brought from the school. |
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