Russia Offers Reward for Chechen Rebel Leaders

This is Steve Ember with In the News in VOA Special English.

This week, the government of
Russia offered ten million dollars for information leading to two
commanders of the rebels in Chechnya. Russian officials say Shamil
Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov organized the attack a week ago at a
school in southern Russia. Aslan Maskhadov is the former president
of Chechnya. Both men denied any involvement.

More than three hundred people were killed at the school in the
town of Beslan in North Ossetia. Many of them were children. A group
of thirty men and women held more than one thousand people hostage
for fifty-two hours.

Russian officials say the attackers apparently set off explosives
by accident. Many of the hostages then tried to flee and were shot.
This led to a raid by Russian security forces that killed most of
the attackers. Seven hundred people were injured in the resulting
explosions and fire.

A man identified as a captured hostage-taker appeared on state
television. He said the attackers were told that the goal was to
start a war across the Caucasus. The area has a mixture of ethnic
and religious groups.

Russian officials said several of the militants who seized the
school came from other countries. Some attackers reportedly were
Arabs. This has not been independently confirmed.

Russian media have called the school attack "Russia's 9/11,"
comparing it to the attacks on the United States on September
eleventh, two thousand one. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated
in Moscow Tuesday to denounce terrorism and attacks on children.
Anger over the school attack in Beslan led the president of North
Ossetia to promise that his government would resign.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to lead a full war
against terrorism. But he also noted weaknesses in Russian security
forces. Some officials have proposed travel and other restrictions
in an effort to prevent rebels from moving freely around the
country.

For ten years, Russian troops have tried to crush a movement to
gain independence for Chechnya and its mostly Muslim population. The
Russian government says it has evidence that fighters from Arab
countries and other areas have gone to fight in Chechnya. The
government believes that the Chechen conflict is an example of
international terrorism.

Mister Putin promised to end the Chechen conflict when he was
elected four years ago. But he has rejected recent Western calls to
negotiate with representatives of the rebels. He said the Chechen
cause was designed to spread to all of southern Russia.

The school hostage crisis began one day after a bomber in Moscow
killed herself and nine other people. It happened outside an
underground train station. And, a week earlier, bombs destroyed two
Russian passenger airplanes. Officials also linked those attacks to
female bombers. Ninety people were killed.

In the News in VOA Special English was written by Cynthia Kirk.
This is Steve Ember.