The Children Of Beslan

As the world mourns 9/11 and 7/7 not many people care to remember one of the worst terrorist attacks ever in history, the Beslan school hostage tragedy. On September 1, 2004, a group of heavily armed rebel extremists stormed into School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia. For three days, more than a thousand children and adults were held hostage in a sweltering gymnasium, denied food and water, and forced to keep their hands over their heads, the harrowing siege ended on September 3 with a series of explosions and a hail of gunfire that killed some 350 people - half of them children. I happened to watch a totally shocking documentary on HBO called 'The children of Beslan' , where the youngest survivors of Beslan tell their story.

Some facts about the Chechen war & the Beslan tragedy:
- Russia sent troops into Muslim Chechnya in late 1994 to squash the region's self-declared independence. The army lost thousands of troops in the fighting that followed.

- Since 1999, rebels have increasingly targeted civilians with suicide bombings and hostage-takings such as last September's Beslan tragedy when 331 people -- 186 of them children -- died after the siege collapsed into a bloodbath.

- The rebel group, which investigators say numbered around 30, drove to the small town from the Muslim regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia on Sept. 1, 2004, passing along some of the most heavily-guarded roads in Russia.

- There is only one surviving hostage taker Nurpachi Kulaiyev, an Islamic Chechenian militant who is currently facing trial.