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Police
ban relatives from entering hospital to see freed hostages
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MOSCOW,
October 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russian special forces
planned to storm the theater where Chechen fighters were holding 800
people even before a deadline expired for the hostages’ threatened
execution, a person who took part in the assault told a newspaper on
Sunday, October 27.
The
Russian forces expected up to 150 hostages to die in the assault, the Moskovsky
Komsomolets paper also quoted security experts who took part in
planning the operation as saying.
“In
our eyes, it all went exactly according to plan. The main thing is we
won the psychological war.
“We
leaked information that the assault would be launched at 03:00 am. The
rebels went on alert but there was no assault,” Agence France-Presse
(AFP) quoted the special forces member as telling Moskovsky
Komsomolets.
“And
at 05:00 am we began storming the building,” he was quoted as saying
on the newspaper’s Internet website.
Russian
officials had said they had been forced to storm the theater to save the
hostages after the Chechen fighters shot dead two men.
The
dramatic events unfolded shortly before a 6:00 am (0200 GMT) deadline
set by the fighters for President Vladimir Putin to comply with their
demands, ending the Russian waged war on Chechnya.
One
hundred and eighteen hostages have died after the storming operation,
the Russian Health Ministry said Sunday, quoted by Interfax.
Fifty
hostage-takers have also been killed, the Russian FSB intelligence
service said.
Hundreds
of freed hostages were still ill in hospital, suffering from the
after-effects of gas, Russian media reported quoting hospital doctors.
Despite
relief at the end of the hostage crisis, hard questions mounted about
the use of a powerful gas that may have killed most of the 118 hostages
confirmed dead.
Anxious
relatives kept vigil outside hospitals, desperately waiting to know if
loved ones had made it through the ordeal.
Speculation
in the foreign press that Russian forces may have used nerve gas was
sure to put further pressure on President Putin over his handling of the
crisis.
If
confirmed, use of a chemical gas would surely unleash an avalanche of
criticism of Putin.
During
a check of Moscow hospitals, the web news service sgazeta.ru said its
reporters found only “four or five” of the injured had received
bullet wounds, all of them at hospital number 13, where 349 ex-hostages
were admitted.
An
AFP employee who was among those taken hostage said Sunday that none of
the bodies of the dead or injured bore bullet wounds - an account that
seemed to confirm reports that the gas caused the hostage deaths.
“They
are not telling us anything about the nature of the gas,” Oleg
Zyogonov said by telephone from his hospital, adding: “I saw no bullet
impact on the bodies.”
He
said hospital staff had forbidden him to talk to anybody and were
monitoring his telephone conversation with the AFP office in Moscow.
“They
forbade me to talk to you. A doctor is watching me,” he said before
hanging up.
Doctors
who entered the theater after the raid told local media that several
hostages had died choking on their own vomit, a likely effect of the gas
pumped into the building by Russian forces.
Hundreds
of hostages who survived the ordeal are ill in hospital, many in serious
condition from what is believed to be the after-effects of the gas.
The
authorities have refused to say what gas they pumped into the theater,
prompting doctors to complain that they do not know how best to treat
the patients.
Intelligence
service sources told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that the
special forces had sprayed gas inside the building before the assault to
incapacitate the rebels “as an extra precaution.”
It
contained a chemical mixture and its concentration was higher than
expected, the sources said, adding that the special forces admitted that
they did not expect it to have such a powerful effect.
According
to doctors quoted by the Kommersant daily, it was either a
sleeping gas or a nerve gas.
In
sufficient doses, either type of gas can cause people to suffocate, they
underlined.
Deputy
Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev Saturday denied a report by Moscow
Echo radio that the gas released by the special forces, which he
described as “special substances”, had caused some of the hostage
deaths.
Lev
Federov, a chemical weapons specialist, told Moscow Echo radio that the
gas was one of the few not forbidden by an international agreement on
chemical weapons and was stocked by armies around the world.
Meanwhile,
an Israeli expert said in remarks published Sunday that nerve gas may
have been used during the bloody assault of a Moscow theatre.
“There
is no sleeping gas which can be brought into a theater to neutralize
people quickly,” said an anesthesia specialist from Jerusalem’s
Hadassah University hospital, quoted by the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
“It
seems to me that the substance used has no connection to anesthetics ...
the only thing that seems plausible is that they used nerve gas -- that
explains the patients' bad condition and the need for respiration”,
said Professor Yoel Donchin.
A
Russian doctor quoted in Ha’aretz also speculated the soldiers
had used “low concentrations of nerve gas,” while other experts said
“new chemical substances that featured hallucinogens, perhaps even
LSD,” may have been used.
Ha’aretz
speculated that the refusal by Russian authorities to allow visitors
into the hospitals after the hostages were rushed there for treatment
may have been a bid to hide the agent they had used in the storming.
