Russia warns of pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases

By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times

SERGEI GRITS / AP Ten-year-old Azamat Tetov's mother, Zalina, leans close to her son's face, speaking to him calmly with her eyes fixed on his. Azamat's occasional answers are inaudible through a plastic oxygen mask that covers his mouth and nose. A steady stream of Muscovites brought toys, clothes, games and money to Children's Hospital No. 9 in Moscow, where Azamat and seven other school-hostage victims are being treated for burns and gunshot wounds.

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Russia also announced a $10 million reward for the "neutralization" of Chechnya's top two rebel leaders, Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev. Maskhadov, at least, has vigorously denied involvement and condemned the hostage-taking.

Both of the Russian statements marked a stepped-up attempt by the Kremlin to counter U.S. calls for political settlement with Chechen separatists and to assuage the grief of a public still reeling from last week's deaths of 335 hostages at a school in southern Russia.

"Military steps are an extreme measure in the fight against terrorism," Col. Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, the Russian armed-forces chief, said after meeting with NATO commanders. "Our position on pre-emptive strikes has been stated before, but I will repeat it: We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region."

He added that Russia did not plan to use nuclear forces in such strikes.

The statement caused unease in neighboring Georgia. Over the years, Russia has accused Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to take shelter in the remote gorges along its northern border. A spokesman for Maskhadov in London predicted that Russia would step up attempts to assassinate Chechens abroad.

"Mr. Baluyevsky seems to have made it perfectly clear to everybody today that Russia will now begin to hunt down and destroy separatists and terrorists wherever they are," said Akhmad Zakayev, a London-based Chechen rebel representative.

Former senior Chechen official Zelimkhan Yandarbieyev died in a car bombing in February in Qatar. Two Russian agents were convicted in the killing, although Moscow has denied involvement.

Russia was critical of the United States when President Bush in 2002 announced a policy of pre-emptive strikes against perceived threats. Moscow also strongly opposed the U.S. war in Iraq. But Russia has since updated its own military protocol to allow for preventive strikes, and yesterday's announcement did not represent a policy shift.

Timothy Colton, a Russian studies professor at Harvard University, said Moscow's warning comes from a sense of frustration after four years of terrorist attacks and a still-unsettled situation in Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces, off an on, for a decade.

"Everything they've tried has not worked. They have this massive military capacity to do things kind of on the old playing field, and they're trying to let people know they feel free to use those assets wherever they want," he said.
 
"The whole point of mentioning that there won't be nuclear weapons is to remind everybody that they have nuclear weapons," he added, although the chances of Russia using them in such a case are "close to mathematical zero."

Alexander Golts, military analyst with the magazine Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, said it was unlikely that Russia would be able to carry out effective strikes against Chechen rebel bases.

"Russia has up until now had great difficulties in determining the location of terrorist bases in Chechnya, to say nothing about bases abroad," he said. "Baluyevsky's statement appears to be merely an attempt to pretend to be doing something. ... For what has happened (at the school) is not just a terrible tragedy, it is an appalling disgrace for Russia, which shows the utter impotence and helplessness of the Russian power-wielding ministries."

In the Russian government's first detailed account of the events of the crisis, a top law-enforcement official yesterday said the explosion that triggered the slaughter occurred when one of the bombs rigged in the school gymnasium accidentally detonated.

The hostage-takers were trying to rearrange the network of mines and trip-wired bombs when one of the bombs exploded, Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov said, inciting panic. "Many hostages started to flee, and the militants opened fire."

Some of the children were shot in the back as they fled, Russian authorities and hostages interviewed after the ordeal have said. Russian troops stormed the building after the rebels began firing.

After pulling into the school's parking lot, the rebels herded stunned children, parents and teachers into the gym, threatening to shoot anyone who resisted.

When some of the rebels appeared surprised and questioned the mission, the leader "killed one of his people to intimidate the others," Ustinov said.

Later, the hostage-takers' leader, a man the rebels called "colonel," detonated the suicide-bomb belts worn by the two female rebels in the group — again to discourage any dissent, Ustinov said.

Investigators also said that after the school was rigged, one of the rebels kept the detonator for the network of explosives under his boot.

"If the militant had removed his boot from the detonator, an explosion immediately would have occurred," Ustinov said.

In North Ossetia's provincial capital, Vladikavkaz, President Alexander Dzasokhov agreed to fire his government in two days, yielding to an angry crowd of 1,000 demonstrators who demanded that local officials be held accountable for the tragedy. Dzasokhov said he would step down if he failed to launch an independent investigation into the siege.

Alexei Kuznetsov of the Los Angeles

Times' Moscow bureau contributed

to this report. Additional information

from the Chicago Tribune and

The Associated Press