The average man on the street won’t remember today, but I want our readers to. Today marks the date of the culmination of the 2002 Nord-Ost Siege. A splinter group of Chechen separatists attacked and held around 800 members of the audience and theater troupe for two-and-a-half days. Around 90 of the hostages were able to take advantage of the chaos surrounding initial stages of the siege to escape. Another 150 – 200 hostages were released by the terrorists hours after taking the theater. Over the next two days more groups of hostages were released including children.
Just miles from the Kremlin, the attack to retake the theater consisted of decisive action by Russian SOF. While they were successful in defeating the 50 terrorists, unfortunately, part of the course of action was to pump an unknown chemical agent into the theater which contributed to the ultimate hostage death toll of 170. Unfortunately, the fate and whereabouts of 12 terrorists is still unknown.
Interestingly, many of the explosives brandished by the terrorists were in fact training dummies and the detonators for the actual devices contained drained batteries sabotaged in the terrorist logistics network by undercover agents Additionally, hostages retained their cell phones and were able to pass information on the siege to authorities.
US military, Law Enforcement and First Responders should study the Nord-Ost Siege in greater detail to consider the possibility of similar situations and how they can effectively be dealt with. Many already consider the September, 2004 tragedy at Beslan where Chechen terrorists held a school on opening day, killing 334. However, the conflict is much larger in scope and provides further insight into how terrorists may operate in a homeland. These incidents as well as the 1995 deployment of a radiological dispersion device by Chechens in Moscow’s Izmaylovsky Park bear close study.
Please remember the innocent hostages lost in 2002’s Nord-Ost Siege and those Russian troops killed in the raid to retake the theater. They all died in this international war on terrorism.
