The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (32 page)

A captured terrorist identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev was put on Russian state television on September 6, 2004. He was injured and had trouble talking, but said that “we gathered in the forest and the Colonel—it's his nickname—and they said we must seize the school in Beslan.” He credited Basayev with giving the orders. He noted that another Chechen commander, Aslan Maskhadov, also gave orders. His group included Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, and people of other nationalities. “When we asked the Colonel why we must do it, he said, ‘Because we need to start war in the entire territory of the North Caucasus.' ” Many of the school terrorists had also taken part in the June raids in Ingushetia that killed 90 people. The
Washington Post
reported that a Western intelligence service indicated that some of the terrorists came from Jordan and Syria.

Authorities detained relatives of Basayev and Maskhadov on the second day of the siege.

Russian authorities said that surveillance tape of the terrorists indicated that they had argued among themselves as to whether to escape or continue the siege. The group was led by four men and took phoned orders from Chechen commander Basayev. The leaders included a Chechen, a Russian, an Ingush, and an Ossetian, and were identified by their code names of Abdullah, Fantomas, The Colonel, and Magas.

• Fantomas was a bodyguard of Basayev.
  
• Abdullah (aka Vladimir Khodoyev, variant Khodov), had fought alongside Basayev earlier. He had upbraided the other gunmen when they permitted hostages to take a drink of water late in the takeover.
  
• The Colonel was often in the gym and was believed by the survivors to be a Russian.
  
• Magas (aka Ali Taziyev), 30, was a former police officer who disappeared on October 10, 1998, while working as a guard for a local official, according to press accounts. He and another police officer were guarding the official's wife in a market when Chechens kidnapped the trio. She was ransomed in late 1999. The other officer's body was found in 2000. Magas joined the terrorists and led an attack in Ingushetia in June. Some authorities believed he had staged the kidnapping and had joined the terrorists earlier. He became head of the Ingush Jamaat, a group allied with the Chechens. He led the June raids in Ingushetia, killing dozens of prosecutors and policemen. Magas is a common name, first heard in the terrorist milieu in the April 2004 assassination attempt against Ingushetian president Murat Zyazikov. Police initially believed he was Magomed Yevloyev. A man by that name was killed in Malgobek, but it was later determined that he was an unrelated murder suspect. Another Magomed Yevloyev was killed in Galashki, but he also was not the right Magas.
  

All four leaders were killed in the gun battle.

The terrorists videotaped the siege; the tape was shown on Russian television on September 7, 2004, and picked up around the world. Authorities also reported that they had tapped into a walkie-talkie call from a terrorist. President Putin reported, “One asks, ‘What's happening? I hear noise,' and the other says, ‘It's okay, I'm in the middle of shooting some kids. There's nothing to do.' They were bored, so they shot kids. What kind of freedom fighters are these?” Russian demanded the extradition from the United Kingdom of Zakayev and other Chechen separatists who had been given political asylum.

Security services reported on September 8, 2004, that the terrorist leader shot one of his own men who did not want to take children hostage, then blew up the two women by flipping the electronic control on their detonators. Police also said they had been aided by a local police officer. Authorities said the gym explosion had been an accident when the terrorists were trying to rearrange the explosives. The Kremlin also backtracked on saying that 10 Arabs were involved but continued to claim that a multinational group of extremists was involved. Moscow offered a $10 million reward for the capture or killing of Basayev and Maskhadov. The next day, Chechen rebel websites offered a $20 million bounty for President Putin's capture.

By September 9, 2004, Russian officials had identified six Chechens and four Ingush as involved in the attack squad. Bomb techs defused 127 homemade bombs in the school.

On September 10, 2004, President Putin approved a parliamentary investigation into the attack. He also complained about American and British
calls for negotiations with Chechens, suggesting that this was equivalent to calling for negotiations with al Qaeda. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained that Western countries were giving asylum to Chechen separatists.

On September 16, 2004, a key advisor to President Putin, Aslakhanov, said that the president had been prepared to release 30 Chechens during the siege. Aslakhanov said that he was about to go into the school to talk to the hostage-takers, with whom he had spoken by phone three times, when the explosives went off.

The next day, Basayev, using the alias Abdallakh Shamil, said on Kavkaz-Center, an Islamic website based in Lithuania, that his group was responsible and threatened more attacks on Russian civilians if independence was denied. He said:

The posting said that the terrorists “made a fatal mistake” by allowing a Russian emergency services vehicle onto school grounds to remove bodies of people killed in the initial storming of the building. He claimed that two terrorists who went outside to watch the removal of the bodies were shot by troops. He said that the terrorists had deployed 20 mines, connected together in one circuit. “I personally trained this group in a forest, and I tested this system. Either all bombs would have exploded or not a single one. . . . We suggest that independent experts should check the fragments and types of wounds,” implying that Russian bombs had killed the children. The posting claimed that there were 33 hostage-takers, including 2 Arabs. Basayev said that the operation cost 8,000 euros (circa $9,800) plus some weapons stolen from Russian forces. “I don't know bin Laden, don't receive any money from him, but would not mind.”

On January 29, 2005, the parliamentary investigating commission said that some law enforcement officers were involved. Two accomplices had been detained, three were being sought, and paperwork was in the process to arrest two more. On May 29, 2007, a Russian court granted amnesty to three police officers who had been charged with negligence for failing to prevent the attack.

On May 17, 2005, the trial began of lone surviving terrorist Kulayev on charges of murder and terrorism in the case. On May 16, 2006, the chief justice of the Supreme Court in North Ossetia ruled that Kulayev had taken part in murder and terrorism. On May 26, 2006, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Overview:
In the United States, the al Qaeda attack on the homeland is called 9/11; in the United Kingdom, London's emotional equivalent was 7/7 (and the failed copycat attack in late July). London was brought to a standstill with bombings of the subway and bus systems as thousands of Londoners wondered if they would be the next victims.

Incidents:
On July 7, 2005, bombs exploded in three train stations and on a nearby double-decker bus, killing at least 49 people and wounding more than 700. (The tally eventually rose to 56 dead.) Several al Qaeda– affiliated groups, including the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, the Group of al Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe, and the Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe, claimed credit. Each device contained less than 10 pounds of explosives, enough to hide in a backpack. Timing devices apparently were used. Police worked with Spanish officials to determine whether there were links with the 3/11 Madrid train bombings in 2004.

The bombs were apparently to form a cross radiating from King's Cross, but the plan was foiled when one terrorist could not get on a train and had to settle for a bus.

The bombings came a day after London was announced as the host for the 2012 Summer Olympics. They also came during the G-8 summit in Gleaneagles, Scotland, where world leaders held discussions about increasing aid to Africa.

The bombs were nearly simultaneous. First reports indicated that at 8:51
A.M.
, a bomb placed on the floor of the third carriage of Circle Line subway train 204 carrying seven hundred passengers went off 100 yards from the Liverpool Street Station, killing 7 and wounding 100. The train was arriving from Aldgate Station. Police identified the bomber as Shehzad Tanweer, son of the Pakistani owner of a Leeds fish-and-chips shop, and a good friend of fellow bomber Hasib Hussain. Tanweer was a student of physical education at Leeds Metropolitan University and lived in Leeds' Beeston district. Pakistani authorities said Tanweer visited Pakistan in 2004 and met with Osama Nazir, who was later arrested and charged with a 2002 grenade attack on an Islamabad church in which five people, including two Americans, were killed. Tanweer also spent several days at a madrassa near Lahore that had ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

At 8:56
A.M.
, a device placed on the floor of the first carriage, near the first set of double doors where passengers stand, went off three minutes out of the Russell Square Station en route to King's Cross Station, killing at least 21 people on the Piccadilly Line train 311. More than 900 passengers were on board. The bomber was identified by police as Germaine Lindsay (aka Abdullah Shaheed Jamal), a Jamaica-born British citizen
who grew up in a single-parent household in southern England. He converted to Islam at the urging of his mother, who also converted.

At 9:17
A.M.
, a bomb placed on the floor of the second carriage of Circle Line train 216 leaving Edgware Road Station for Paddington Station exploded, killing seven people. The explosion ripped through a wall and damaged two other trains. The bomber was identified by police as Mohammed Sidique Khan, a teaching assistant at a Leeds public school. He was born in the United Kingdom to Pakistani parents. He was married and the father of an 8-month-old girl. He had recently moved to Dewsbury. He earned a degree in education from Leeds University. He traveled to Karachi, Pakistan, with Tanweer on November 16, 2004, on a Turkish Airlines flight. They had stayed at separate addresses near Lahore. The
Sunday Telegraph
said that Khan, the leader of the team, met in Pakistan in fall 2004 with Mohammed Yasin (alias Ustad Osama), an explosives expert who manufactures suicide jackets for Harkat-e-Jihad.

At 9:47
A.M.
, a bomb exploded on Bus No. 30 at Tavistock Square, killing 13 people. The bomb had been placed at the rear of the upper deck of the bus, which had been detoured because of the King's Cross/Russell Square bombing. Some theorized that the bomber had intended to hit another train but was prevented from entering a train station when all had closed. Police said Hussain, an unemployed Muslim, then hopped on a bus and was attempting to reset the timer when the bomb went off. The Pakistani lived in Leeds and had completed vocational business studies at Matthew Murray High School. He became more religious two years earlier. He flew to Karachi, Pakistan, on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Riyadh on July 15, 2004.

Killed and injured included citizens from Australia, China, Ghana, Portugal, Poland, and Sierra Leone.

On July 12, 2005, British police and army units raided six houses around Leeds, arresting a relative of one of the four suspected bombers and conducting a controlled detonation at one of the sites. Police said they found quantities of triacetone triperoxide, a highly volatile substance, at one of the houses.

On July 15, 2005, Cairo police arrested Magdy Mahmoud Nashar, a biochemist who had studied at North Carolina State University for a semester in 2000. He allegedly helped rent the terrorists' Leeds town house.

Authorities were searching for a Pakistani man suspected of helping the terrorists who subsequently left the country on July 6, 2005. They were also searching for Mustafa Setmariam Naser, a Syrian–Spanish dual national who organized terrorist camps in Afghanistan and who was believed to be the mastermind behind the 3/11 Madrid train bombing in 2004. Also wanted was Zeeshan Hyder Siddiqui, 25, a Briton trained in bomb-making in an al Qaeda camp who was arrested in Pakistan in May 2005. He claimed to have lived in west London and studied economics at London University.

Police were searching for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who was raised in Batley, United Kingdom, and was an aide to Abu Hamza Masri, the radical Muslim preacher in London. Aswat had traveled to the United States and was involved in a plot to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. He had also been in Pakistan, India, and other countries. His cell phone had received 20 calls from several of the London bombers. He comes from the same general area of West Yorkshire as three of the bombers; Khan lived closest to him. Aswat attended schools in Batley and Dewsbury and went to a technical college in Bradford. Zambian police arrested Aswat on July 20, 2005, as he was crossing into the country from Zimbabwe. He was deported to the United Kingdom on August 7, 2005, and arrested on U.S. warrants that he helped plan the terrorist training camp in Oregon. The United States requested his extradition from the United Kingdom.

On July 23, 2005, a 17-year-old male was remanded in custody and charged with an arson attack on the home of Germaine Lindsay, one of the bombers.

On August 24, 2005, Bangkok police arrested Atamnia Yacine, an Algerian, on charges of possessing 180 fake French and Spanish passports and overstaying his visa. Thai police believe he supplied the fake IDs used in the 7/7 attacks.

On September 1,2005,
Al Jazeera
aired footage by Khan, one of the bombers, who complained of “atrocities” against Muslims. “Until you will stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. . . . We are at war, and I am a soldier and now you too will taste the reality of this situation.” He expressed admiration of Osama bin Laden.
Al Jazeera
also ran a tape from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's deputy, calling the “glorious raid” an attack that “has moved our battle right to the enemy's doorstep.” He said the bombings were “a slap in the face of the arrogant, crusader British rulers” and “a sip from the glass that the Muslims have been drinking from. . . . We have repeated again and again, and here we are warning one more time: All those who took part in the aggression on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, we will respond in kind.” On September 19, 2005, in a video broadcast by
Al Jazeera
, Zawahiri said, “The blessed London attack was one which al Qaeda was honored to launch against the British Crusader's arrogance and against the American Crusader aggression on the Islamic nation for one hundred years.” He also questioned the Afghan elections and condemned the United Kingdom's plan to deport Abu Qatada, an Islamic radical cleric.