Russia Posts $10M Reward

The wave of Chechnya-linked terror attacks in Russia, including last week's bloodbath at the Beslan school, has prompted the Russian government to offer a reward for information on two Chechen leaders.

Russia's Federal Security Service on Wednesday offered a reward of 300 million rubles (US$10.3 million, euro8.2 million) for information that could help "neutralize" Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, and a military official reasserted Russia's right to strike terrorists the world over.

"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases, we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, told reporters.

Russians Tuesday got a horrific glimpse of what it must have been like to be inside the Beslan school during the militant siege that claimed more than 350 lives.

NTV television says the video was recorded by the assailants.

Football-sized bundles that looked like explosives were attacked to wires and strings hanging from a basketball hoop and other objects, and one attacker in camouflage and a black hood stood with one boot on what NTV said was a book rigged with a detonator.

Red streaks on the floor appeared to be from blood, as if someone bleeding had been dragged across the wooden surface. The hostages pictured included women, children and men, and NTV estimated there were some 1,000 hostages in the gym.

At one point in the video, a terrorist shows the hostages his foot on a book rigged as a switch to detonate the bombs, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

A voice off camera, apparently one of the hostage-takers, says, "Wait, don't bring the children in here yet. Wait until everyone else gets out," reports Palmer. It is unclear what the voice refers to, reports Palmer, but witnesses say children were allowed to go to the bathroom five at a time, picking their way through the wires and ducking under the bombs.

In another scene, the shadowy form of a woman terrorist is seen, dressed in black with her pistol cocked. The wires of her explosive belt are clearly visible.

Wednesday, state television broadcast footage of Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov briefing President Vladimir Putin on the investigation into the taking of the more than 1,200 hostages. It was the first official admission that the number of hostages had been so high; initially the government said about 350 people had been seized, and over the weekend a regional official said the number had been 1,181.

The Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said the two rebel leaders had been responsible for "inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation." Russian officials have accused Basayev and Maskhadov of masterminding last week's attack in the small city of Beslan in North Ossetia, a region bordering Chechnya.

Ustinov said 326 hostages had been killed and 727 wounded in the attack, which ended Friday in a wave of explosions and gunfire as hostages tried to flee, and special forces and armed civilians tried to aid them. He said 210 bodies had been identified, and forensic workers were also trying to identify 32 body fragments. The death toll could rise, Ustinov said.

His deputy, Sergei Fridinsky, said 100 bodies had yet to be identified, the Interfax news agency reported. He also said that the bodies of 12 of the attackers had been identified, and that some of them had taken part in a June attack in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia that targeted police and killed 88 people.

Various officials had previously leaked some details of the investigation, but Wednesday's TV broadcast of Ustinov's briefing was the first attempt by the government to give a formal account of the tragedy that has gripped the nation for the past week. The prosecutor said his information was based on interviews with witnesses and the one alleged attacker detained by authorities.

Ustinov said the approximately 30 attackers, including two women, had met in a forest early on the morning of Sept. 1 before heading to School No. 1 in Beslan in a military-type truck and two jeeps packed with weapons and ammunition.

People who had gathered to mark the first day of school were herded into the gym by the militants, some of whom voiced objections to seizing a school. The detainee, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, said the group's leader, who went by the name Colonel, shot one of the militants and said he would do the same to any other militants or hostages who did not show "unconditional obedience."

Later that day, he detonated the explosives worn by two female attackers, killing them, in order to enforce the lesson, Ustinov said.

One of the militants was stationed with his foot on a button that would set off the explosives, Ustinov said; if he lifted his foot, the bombs strung up around the school gymnasium would detonate, he said.

On Friday, the militants decided for unknown reasons to change the arrangement of the explosives, and appear to have set off one bomb by mistake, Ustinov said. That sparked panic, as hostages tried to flee, and the attackers opened fire.

The Foreign Ministry said Russia would take new steps seeking the extradition of people it says are linked with terrorism, including Chechen rebel representatives Akhmed Zakayev and Ilyas Akhmadov.

Zakayev, an envoy for Maskhadov, has been granted refugee status in Britain. Akhmadov has asylum in the United States.

The hostage-taking and other recent attacks "will help many in the West, where Zakayev and Akhmadov have found political asylum, to see the true face of terror and understand the measure of their delusion," the ministry said.

North Ossetians and liberal Russian politicians and newspapers have criticized authorities' handling of the crisis, which some say further exposed the ineffectiveness of the Kremlin's hard-line policies in Chechnya.

But for the most part, the popular president has avoided the brunt of the anger over the terror attacks.

"Of course I support him, and it's necessary to be even more harsh with terrorists," said Galina Kiselyova, 66, a history teacher who was at an anti-terrorism rally in Moscow on Tuesday, which authorities said had brought out 130,000 demonstrators. "We cannot let go of Chechnya - the Caucasus is ours."

Militants seized the Beslan school a day after a suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people and just over a week after two Russian passenger planes crashed following explosions and killed all 90 people aboard - two attacks authorities suspect were linked to the war in Chechnya.