Chechens Blamed In Russian Siege

Russia's foreign minister said Friday that Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev directed the hostage-taking raid on a school in southern Russia last week and that Arab militants participated in the attack.

The minister, Sergey Lavrov, made the comments in an interview with the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

"I know for certain that Shamil Basayev directly managed this operation," Lavrov said, according to his ministry's transcript of the interview. He did not immediately offer evidence for the claim.

Other Russian officials had said evidence linked Basayev to the attack in a school in a region neighboring Chechnya, but Lavrov's statement was the clearest accusation against the prominent rebel leader.

President Vladimir Putin agreed Friday to a parliamentary investigation of the bloody school hostage siege in southern Russia, less than a week after he had reportedly dismissed the idea of such an inquiry by saying it might turn into "a political show."

The move by Putin seeks to deflect criticism after he had earlier ruled out a public probe of the standoff in Beslan, which the government has blamed on Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

In a meeting shown prominently on state-run television, the lawmaker who heads the upper house of parliament, Sergei Mironov, told Putin the Federation Council would aim to form an investigative commission.

Putin agreed, telling Mironov in the Kremlin meeting that "we are thoroughly interested in receiving a complete, objective picture of the tragic events connected with the seizure of the hostages."

The president had reportedly said only an internal inquiry would be conducted into the crisis that ended Sept. 3 in a chaos of gunfire and explosions and killed at least 330 hostages, warning that a parliamentary probe could turn into "a political show."

Some Putin critics had doubts about a parliamentary investigation.

"Putin has shown that he doesn't consider it necessary to share with the society any information on Beslan," said Alexander Golts, a military observer for the magazine Yezhenedelny Zhurnal.

"Up until now, nothing in the activity of the upper chamber — or the lower one for that matter — could suggest that these people are capable of any fundamental decisions that would force the leadership to rethink its policy," he said.

Putin's initial resistance to a public inquiry had sparked criticism, notably from Ruslan Aushev, a former regional leader and political rival who helped negotiate the release of 26 hostages from the school.

"I think the Federation Council and the Duma are obliged to take part in the process," the newspaper Noviye Izvestia quoted Aushev — the former president of Ingushetia, which borders North Ossetia — as saying. The Duma is the lower chamber.

The foreign minister, Lavrov, also said Russian officials' statements that there were Arabs among the attackers had been confirmed. So far, officials have not provided evidence publicly to support claims that about 10 of the hostage-takers were Arabs.

"The information that there were Arabs has been confirmed, as has been information that there were representatives of other nationalities, among them, as I understand, Russians, a Ukrainian, Chechens, Ingush," he told Al-Jazeera.

Regional security officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that 10 of the roughly 30 militants who seized the school had been identified, and that six were from Ingushetia, a region sandwiched between North Ossetia and Chechnya.

The other six were from Chechnya, the officials said.

Amid fears that the tragedy in North Ossetia could touch off ethnic violence in the North Caucasus, regional figures — including renowned orchestra conductor Valery Gergiev — appeared on state television to ask grieving, angry people not to give in to hatred.

"That would only give joy to those who staged the crime," he said.

Tensions between Ossetians and Ingush, which erupted into a conflict that killed hundreds of people in 1992, have been fueled by suspicions that Ingush were among the attackers.

Russian officials repeatedly have cast the military campaign in Chechnya as part of a war against international terrorism — a battle they say Western countries have hindered by granting asylum to Chechen figures and questioning Kremlin policy.

Russia is particularly angered by Britain's granting of refugee status to Akhmed Zakayev, an envoy for Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, and by U.S. asylum for Ilyas Akhmadov, whom Maskhadov named his foreign minister while he was Chechnya's president in 1999.

On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. and British embassies in Moscow to demand the extradition of Zakayev and Akhmadov. Chanting "Shame, shame," demonstrators brandished signs including one claiming "The U.S. is sponsoring the war in the Caucasus."

In an Associated Press interview, Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to ease Russia's irritation with his suggestions that ultimately there must be political dialogue to resolve the war in Chechnya. Lavrov had accused Western countries of interfering in Russia's internal affairs.

"How this problem of Chechnya will ultimately be solved is something for the Russians to work out," Powell said. "With respect to terrorist attacks against innocent Russians, we stand united with the Russians that they have to deal with this in the most powerful, direct, forceful way that they can in order to protect their citizens."

Russia has been beset by terror in the past two weeks, suffering three attacks that have killed more than 400 people. The attacks — the downing of two airliners apparently by explosions, a suicide bombing in Moscow and the school raid — prompted officials to offer a $10 million reward for information leading to the killing or capture of Basayev and Maskhadov.