Putin Urges Strength; School Toll Tops 340, Half Children
A man sits by dead bodies of the Beslan hostage-taking drama victims at the morgue in Vladikavkz, North Ossetia. Top US newspapers decried "chaos on an almost apocalyptic scale" in the denouement of the hostage-taking in the southern Russian republic of N
BESLAN, Russia - A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists after more than 340 people — nearly half of them children — were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.
Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption.