Umm...the terrorists were hit with the gas and then shot. That is what the news reported. Those kamikaze women rebels slumped over their chairs...were hit with gas first and then shot once in the head. Apparently, they didn't want to take a chance on them waking up and detonating their bombs before they had a chance to disarm the bombs. I don't blame them, either.
SUrfguy, I never read that report. granted, they shot those with dynamite strapped to them for safety measures, but still my argument that most of the terrorists died from the gas remains true.
20% of Russians are Muslim, and the Chechnyan rebels are, in their mind, fighting a holy war for an independent Muslim state. They are Islamic terrorists.
But no one knows for a fact whether it was a suicide mission....the only way that would ever be proven a fact is if they actually comitted suicide. You can call it a suicide mission in theory, but in practice there's too much varibility in human nature to ever be sure until it actually happens. There's always room for negotiation until the last hostage is dead....... Maybe......maybe not.....the Russian press is not always known for being truthful, especially when the gov't is concerned....
What I find hard to believe is that the U.S. isn't pushing for the Russians to divulge what kind of gas they used. It looks like our government is turning a blind eye to this in hopes of what? maybe securing Russian support for an attack on Iraq!? IMO, these people died because of Russian Special Forces not Chechen rebels. I can't subscribe to the theory that the rebels killed these hostages, when it was Russian Special Forces who pumped gas into this building. The Russian Special Forces killed more people than the hostage takers did.
here's a good PRAVDA article: Military Toxicologists Guilty of Death Toll The world wants to know why 117 hostages died as a result of the operation Doctor Viktor Fominykh from the medical center of the presidential administration stated that poisonous substances were not used during the siege of the music theatre in Moscow. As Fominykh said, “the gas that was used during the special operation was a substance with a narcotic effect, which is generally used for surgery.” In this connection, according to Viktor Fominykh, the doctors and the rescuers who evacuated the hostages had a traditional range of substances at their disposal. These substances are referred to the so-called category of non-specific substances. They allow one retrieve the normal functions of a human organism without known the reason why the functions stopped. Several foreign media outlets reported earlier that poisonous military gas might be used during the siege. A former hostage named Veselin Nedkov (Bulgarian national) affirmed that the Russian special group used sarin gas. The twenty-eight-year-old Bulgarian man said that it was the first thing that he heard doctors talking about when he recovered in a hospital: “I do not know, if it is true or not, but I heard this,” the young man said. The Western media pointed out the unwillingness of the Russian government to release the name of the gas. The Daily Telegraph of Great Britain wrote with reference to a London military expert that it was probably BZ gas. This gas was first used by the American military in Vietnam. Russian experts also believe that it was BZ gas. Doctor of Chemical Science Lev Fyodorov, said: “There can be no other variant. Our special forces have only this kind of gas. Theoretically, it is not a lethal gas if it affects healthy people. However, there were elderly people, children with weak organisms, and asthma-sick individuals among the hostages. This gas was lethal for them.” In 1925, the Soviet Union signed the convention on the prohibition of the use of chemical and biological weapons. Nevertheless, the Soviet special services started developing these weapons the same year. BZ gas was on the list of substances the were not banned by the convention. That is why it has always been added to the arsenal of the Russian army. The gas was developed by a special secret institute. The work started in the 1970s in the city of Leningrad (currently St. Petersburg). The institute developed the chemicals to be used to affect the human mind. Lev Fyodorov said that the institute developed weapons of mass destruction. “The use of this gas makes a human being become unconscious. A person stays alive, but his brain "dies” for 24 hours maximum. They have been practicing the use of this weapon for years. They were supposed to invent a generator that would emit the gas into the atmosphere and spread it,” said Fyodorov. The first tests with the use of BZ gas took place in Moscow in the 1980s. Harmless bacteria were spread in the Moscow metro with the help of underground vents. “I am afraid that the hostages’ death will remain on the conscience of military toxicologists. They failed to develop a correct plan to storm the building. Before evacuating the hostages, the rescuers should have given them antidote injections,” Lev Fyodorov said. The gas was used during a siege for the first time. However, experts of the Swedish newspaper Le Temps deny the supposition of the use of BZ gas in Moscow. The newspaper wrote that this gas does not paralyze people, but it causes strange behavior, which was absolutely out of the question in a mined building. According to a Swedish expert, a medical gas was used during the siege of the music theatre. The large number of victims, as the newspaper believes, was caused by an inappropriate overdose. The Russian press wrote that the Federal Security Bureau refused to comment on the nature of the gas used. The Kommersant newspaper concluded that the information was top secret. It was only written that the gas was not in the arsenal of the Alpha group, which actually stormed the building. Most likely, the Alpha group was given the gas prior to the siege. It is not ruled out that the Alpha men did not know about the consequences that the gas might cause. A soldier from a special unit said: “Using any novelties is out of the question for operations of that level. I think that those news stories that report that the special services used too much gas are ridiculous. First of all, the substance was developed by a secret KGB lab. Their chemicals are considered to be the most modern in the world. Secondly, a decision to use such a substance is always made on the top level. This requires coordination with specialists, and dozens of signatures have to be collected. Believe me, it is all very serious, and one should not have a superficial approach to it. We are not kamikazes. We used as much gas as was needed. The instructions allowed the norm. We could have even added a bit more in order to make sure that the terrorists were not able to shoot at all. When a special unit conducts a special operation to release hostages, they all have one and only goal: to cause as little harm as possible or to cause no harm at all. The gas that was used by Alpha has been tested many times. Foreign special groups have this gas as well,” a special unit soldier said. “Russia is trying to avoid a scandal around the poisoning of the hostages.” This is what the Guardian wrote. According to the British newspaper, the government claimed that they had to use gas, because they had no other chemicals at their disposal. The Guardian wrote that it is too early to talk about the public’s reaction to the government’s decision to use the gas and to the hard-heartedness of the authorities towards the hostages’ relatives after the siege. The Italian newspaper La Stampa published the chronological order of the events in Moscow. Pursuant to the information of the newspaper, the special group started using the gas at about 6:15 a.m. Alpha group entered the building 15 minutes later. Therefore, the effect lasted for 15 minutes. Later, it became known that the gas was in effect only in the central hall of the building. A lot of people in that hall died, including female suicide terrorists. Others died before they were taken out of the building. La Stampa wrote that the authorities knew that hundreds of people would die in the long run. There was no opportunity to make antidote injections to 700 people in a row.
The gas looks like it killed some of the hostages, but if it hadn't been used and the rebels with the explosives strapped to their chance had gotten a chance to detonate them, how many more hostages would have been killed by that? I don't know, and maybe there was a better way, but it's a really tough call. I won't slam the RUssians too hard at all since I think they saved more lives than they cost, and I can't think of how they could have done it differently.
x110, sorry to disagree, but you are wrong on all counts. Most of the terrorists were shot, they did not die from the gas. I guess it would be safe to assume that some of them did, just like some of the hostages died from it, but not all of them. Plus, the hostage takers were Islamists and extremists fighting for jihad. There are basically three rebel groups in Chechnya and the ones who were in the theater belonged to the group that wants a radical, Islamist Chechnyan state.
I think the russians did the right thing. You can't be held hostage by this kind of stuff. You must act swiftly even tho the risk is high. It's all about control and the moment you take that away you take away the one thing that gives the terror power. Without control, they are as powerless as everyone else.
The rebels stated themselves that they "came to Moscow to die". Room for negotiation until the last hostage is dead???
I think the russians did the right thing. You can't be held hostage by this kind of stuff. You must act swiftly even tho the risk is high. It's all about control and the moment you take that away you take away the one thing that gives the terror power. Without control, they are as powerless as everyone else. I'm not sure the problem was so much in the action itself (that may be questionable - but we don't know the details), but in their response afterwords. The fact that they wouldn't and still won't tell doctors what gas was used so the doctors could help the still-critical patients is disturbing, to say the least.
By the way, the French newspaper "Le Parisien" speculates that in addition to the gas, a so-called "High-Power-Microwave-Bomb" (HPM) might have been used to prevent the electronic components of the explosives from being used. Seems pretty logical to me. I think there is no gas in the world that would stop someone with explosives strapped around them to detonate them. You would always have some seconds to do it. This technology was developed in the US, by the way. http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020805/aw24.htm
rockHEAD, the hostage takers never had the chance to kill the hostages. That is the whole point. Do you not see they still saved more lives than they would have lost? Are you assuming that this is going to be resolved peacefully when dealing with a bunch of terrorists? The timeline for hostage killing was approaching and the negotiations had broken down. I can pretty much guarantee you that most, if not all die, if they don't take drastic action such as they did. What...you think they brought all those bombs in there to give up in the end? That's like hoping the terrorists who flew into the WTC and Pentagon would have a change of heart in mid-flight thinking this is a bad idea and not do it. Granted, they could have used a better gas which immobilizes them more quickly without side effects...if there is such a gas. It's how they handled the situation after the fact which probably cost a lot more lives. No antidotes, no confirmation of the gas used = more deaths. I would hate to have seen how many more would have died had they not done this. Then, even more people would have been b****ing that enough hadn't been done. But, apparently a lot of you people are optimists. It will be okay...NOT.
<b>News Flash</b> They are now reporting that the gas used had a chemical substance found in heroine and morphene. There is a fairly successful antidote to that (a shot). However, the doctors guessed wrong and used atrophine first to no avail. Then they started using the other antidote, which worked. The doctors are saying they would have been able to save more lives had they been warned what the gas was. They are reporting that people believe the reason the gas was not revealed is because it must be a banned gas. good grief...just use it if it is non lethal and pay the consequences later, but don't use it in a freaking irresponsible and lethal manner by not having the antidote around.
