#6524 #6525
#7 - JRL 6524
From: "Jeffrey Barrie" <jbarrie@nccom.ru>
Subject: Nord Ost - after action report
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002
Just back from Vakangovskoye cemetery and the funeral of Arseny and Christina, the thirteen year old boy and girl actors who died during the hostage rescue. A total of eighteen Nord-Ost cast and crew members perished from gas poisoning. We were among a thousand mourners standing quietly in a light snowfall, waiting our turns to place flowers on their graves. One week exactly after the terrorist attack began.
We woke last Saturday morning to the news that the theater had been stormed and the hostages released with minimum casualties and were elated at the idea that the cast may have come through the ordeal unscathed. We watched amazing video shots of the auditorium that we have come to know so well from our many visits to see Nord Ost, empty of all but a dozen dead terrorists and the accumulated litter of the siege. Dead bodies are routinely shown on Russian TV during coverage of accidents, crime scenes and military actions so the graphic shots were not surprising. But one image is likely to remain in my consciousness forever. It is the picture of a group of young women, all clothed alike in traditional black dress, faces covered, bodies wrapped in explosives, sitting not far from each other in theater seats, seemingly asleep -- except for one whose head is back, mouth wide open.
There were initial reports that a few of the terrorists may have escaped, and that there would be dragnets set around the city to find them. Undeterred by this information, we headed for the Yasnovo region of Moscow to take guests to a new indoor "aqua park" that is one of the current hot attractions these days. We left the city via Mozhaisk Highway to the Outer Ring Road. There was a light vehicle check in progress at the police checkpoint there, one of a network set up at every entry and egress point into and out of Moscow. That changed dramatically when we got to the Yasnovo exit, and it took us an hour to travel the two miles back into the city from the Ring Road because the check point there was stopping and searching every car, both coming and going. We received a full document check and the inside and trunk of our car was inspected. We saw a group of around 100 young men of Caucasian nationalities standing at the check point, obviously being detained.
By the time we got back home late Saturday afternoon the preliminary estimate of hostage casualties had skyrocketed, but news of why was hard to find, either on TV or over the Internet. Surfing the Internet and TV channels gradually filled in a lot of the missing blanks, and our shock grew over the increasing casualty estimates hour by hour. We watched groups of relatives gathered at the entrances to the city hospitals that are treating the injured, waiting interminably for information, and infrequent reunions with hostages who were released in good health.
The focus of the news has shifted to the question of how such an attack could have been carried out in the middle of Russia's capital. It turns out that the miracle of cell phone technology was a two edged sword that gave the terrorists real time information during the siege, but also created records of their contacts' phone numbers which have been traced to addresses in Moscow, other Russian cities and foreign countries. The two most prominent "terrorist havens" in the news are Georgia and Turkey, both close US allies.
Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to offer condolences to the United States after the 9/11 attack, and George Bush was first on the phone to Russia after Nord Ost was taken hostage with his. Both leaders seem determined to wage all out war against terrorism. Standing in the way seems to be the lack of a mutually acceptable distinction between terrorists and nationalists. My new coda for understanding such problems is David Halberstam's new book "War in a Time of Peace." Highly recommended, but very pessimistic.
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