This volume contains by far the most complete reports available in English concerning two major
terrorist incidents in Russia: the October 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater at Dubrovka and the
September 2004 taking of a large school in Beslan in southern Russia. The issues examined are
as follows:- the backgrounds of the Muslim extremists who carried out these acts including the
de facto leaders of the terrorist assaults ethnic Chechen Ruslan Elmurzaev and Ingush Ruslan
Khuchbarov - the failure of Russian law-enforcement to prevent these two incidents documenting
both the massive corruption of the Russian security services and police and the absence of the
rule of law - the storming of the Moscow theater building and of the school at Beslan by
Russian police aided by the military elucidating the reasons for the very large loss of life
in both incidents - the use by the Russian police of a special gas at Dubrovka and of tanks and
flamethrowers at Beslan - the evident fixation of the Putin leadership with portraying these
two assaults as incidents of international Islamic terrorism linked to the Al-Qaeda network -
and the repeated attempts on the part of the Russian authorities at the time of these incidents
to weaken the influence of moderate Chechen separatists headed by the late Aslan Maskhadov.
