In-depth information

Background
Comintern Street SNO was one of seven schools in Beslan, a town of around 35,000 people in the republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Russian Caucasus. The school, located right next to the district police station, had around 60 teachers and more than 800 students. Its gymnasium, where most of the estimated 1,200 hostages were to spend 52 hours of captivity, measured 10 metres wide and 25 metres long.
Several witnesses have testified they were made to help their captors remove the weapons from the caches hidden in the school. There were also claims that the militants or their accomplices constructed a "sniper's nest" position on the sports hall roof in advance.
It was also reported that the SNO in Beslan was used by Ossetian militia forces as an internment camp for ethnic Ingush civilians in late 1992 during the short but bloody Ingush–Ossetian East Prigorodny conflict, in which hundreds of Ingush residents of North Ossetia lost their lives or disappeared during the week-long hostilities, and thus the school was arguably chosen as the target of the attack by the mostly-Ingush rebel group because of this connection. According to media reports, SNO was one of several buildings in which the Ossetians had held Ingush citizens, many of them women and children; the hostages sat on the gymnasium floor, deprived of food and water, just as the Ossetians would do in the 2004 siege, and several male hostages were hauled outside and executed. Beslan, like the major Army airbase in nearby Mozdok, was also site of an airfield used by the Russian military aviation for its combat operation in the nearby republic of Chechnya since 1994.

Here is a video on the Beslan School seige



The Crisis
Wednesday September 1
0530 (all times BST): School seized by unknown gunmen, shots exchanged with police. Reports of death toll range from two to eight people. More than a dozen wounded.
0750: Russian media report that attackers are wearing suicide-bomb belts and threatening to blow up school. Hundreds of hostages, including many children, are herded into the gymnasium and the building is mined.
1340: Russian news agencies report 15 children released.
1630: Security official says authorities have established contact with hostage-takers.
Thursday September 2
1000: Ruslan Aushev, an Afghan war veteran and former president of neighbouring Ingushetia region, holds talks with hostage-takers in school gym.
1240: First hostages released, women and small children taken to safety. Officials say a total of 26 hostages released.
Friday September 3
0900: Emergencies ministry workers approach school with agreement of militants to retrieve bodies of dead hostages that have been lying in front of school for two days. Later reports suggest that 10 to 20 hostages may have been executed by this stage in addition to the earlier fatalities.
1000-1030: There are two large explosions from inside the school followed by gunfire. There were many claims as of what caused the explosions.
Whatever the cause of the explosions, hostages took the explosions as a signal to flee and militants then open fire on them. Security forces return fire and lead 30 women and children to safety. Some of the militants try to flee the building.
Security forces pursue them into a nearby town and storm the school building. A gun battle as troops blew a hole in the side of one of the school buildings and begun freeing hostages. Soldiers carry out the badly injured.
1030-1130: The roof of the school partially collapses after a series of explosions. Some gun men attempt to escape in the crowd during the battle.
1130-1230: Gunfire continues at the school two hours after it was stormed. Itar-Tass reports all the hostages are believed to have been evacuated but it becomes clear later that some were still being held.
Several militants escape and take refuge in a local house, surrounded by Russian troops. Explosions and gunfire are heard in streets near the school.
1330: More than 100 bodies are found in the school, mostly in the gymnasium where the roof had collapsed. Two emergency workers are reportedly killed, as well as 10 militants. Health officials say 409 are wounded, 219 of them children.
1555: Interfax reports three militants, possibly including the group's leader, are blockaded in school basement.
1630: A Russian presidential aide says nine militants killed in the hostage crisis were Arab mercenaries.
1700-1800: A loud explosion is heard from inside school compound. Three militants are arrested trying to escape in civilian dress. Officials say four hostage-takers are still at large.
There are reports that almost 650 people were hospitalised.
1850: Fighting ends in the school's basement but two militants are still at large.
2120:The death toll rises to more than 200.
2140: Sporadic explosions and gunfire continue despite reports that all resistance by militants has been suppressed.
2150: Officials at the Russian crisis coordination centre say two militants have been killed in the past hour.
2300: Interfax quotes a Russian official as saying a total of 27 hostage-takers have been killed.