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Attackers seize Russian school
A girl is hurried away from the scene by armed Russian officers.
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Armed attackers have seized a school in a town in southern Russia, and Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency says about 400 people, including 200 children, are being held.
The Interfax news agency, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said there were 17 attackers, both male and female, and the gang included some who were wearing explosive belts.
Wednesday's seizure took place on the first day of the Russian school year, in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
Video of the scene from Russian Television showed Russian forces stationed near the school, some of them behind a tank, as the sound of gunfire could be heard. A young girl and an older woman were hurried to safety by the armed forces.
Beslan is located 19 miles (30 km) north of Vladikavkaz in southern Russia, which borders the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya.
The seizure of the school comes a day after a female suicide bomber killed nine people and herself, and wounded 51 others when she detonated a bomb outside a subway station in northeastern Moscow. (Full story)
Authorities did not immediately say if the female bomber was Chechen.
The bombing marked the second major terrorist attack on Russia in a week, following the near simultaneous attacks on two Russian airliners by what authorities believe were two Chechen women suicide bombers. Eighty-nine people died in the crashes.
Female Chechen suicide bombers are known in Russia as "black widows."
Authorities have said traces of the explosive hexogen were found in the wreckage of both planes. Hexogen, when mixed with nitroglycerin, forms a plastic explosive similar to C4 and has been used by Chechen rebels in attacks on Russian soil in the past.
Chechen rebels -- who refused to take part in Chechen elections held Sunday and vowed to take their fight to Russian soil -- have denied responsibility.
But many Russian politicians are already linking them to Tuesday's suicide bombing, calling it revenge for the elections in which a Kremlin-backed candidate won the presidency.
Russian troops have battled separatist guerrillas in Chechnya since 1994.
In October 2002, about 50 Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater and took about 800 hostages.
After a three-day siege, Russian forces stormed the building using gas, killing most of the rebels and 120 hostages.
This is not good.
Well, I am not surprised by Islamist fanatics. 
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