Russia vows to liquidate all terrorist bases

Russia's embattled military was prepared to strike at terrorist bases anywhere in the world, the head of its general staff said yesterday, amid mounting criticism of the way it handled the chaotic denouement to last week's school siege in Beslan.

The pledge came after the FSB domestic security service put a bounty of $10 million (€8.2 million) on the heads of Chechnya's separatist leader, Mr Aslan Maskhadov, and its most feared warlord - and chief suspect in the Beslan attack - Mr Shamil Basayev.

"As for launching pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases, we will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," said Gen Yuri Baluyevsky.

"However, this does not mean that we will launch nuclear strikes," he added, at a meeting with US Gen James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe.

Russia's security forces have come in for sharp criticism in the domestic press, for failing to prepare for the worst during a two-day siege that ended in mayhem as gunmen traded fire with soldiers and armed civilians as hundreds of adults and children tried to flee.

Prosecutor General Mr Vladimir Ustinov said yesterday that 326 hostages were killed and 727 wounded in the attack, and that more than 100 bodies remained to be identified.

At the start of the siege, officials had claimed that only about 300 people were trapped in the school in the North Ossetia region.

Security chiefs also claimed to have killed 10 Arabs among the 30 or so men and women who attacked the school on the first day of the new term, bolstering President Vladimir Putin's claim that international Islamic terror groups were operating in Chechnya.

But Mr Ustinov said nothing of the Arabs yesterday and other officials said the identity of the attackers had not yet been established.

Early in the siege, negotiators had said the gunmen were from the Caucasus regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

"Russia has long been trying to link the Russian-Chechen conflict with the international war on terror, so they are adopting tactics from the Americans," said Mr Akhmed Zakayev, a London-based spokesman for Mr Maskhadov, about the threat of worldwide strikes against terror groups.

"It is a threat toward Europe," he said, recalling the conviction of two Russian special agents in Qatar this year for the assassination of former Chechen leader Mr Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.

"I do not exclude that what they did in Qatar they could try to do in any European country," Mr Zakayev said.

He played down the threat posed by Russia's offer of a reward for the capture of Mr Maskhadov, who won an internationally recognised election to the Chechen presidency in 1997 and has repeatedly denounced rebel attacks on civilians.

"Personally for Maskhadov and our affairs, it cannot have any effect. Any people who were prepared to sell themselves have already long since been bought by Russia. Those near Maskhadov will not sell their ideas for any money."