Beslan, Sep 2004. SOFREP article

[JHC]

http://sofrep.com/11170/spetsnaz-beslan-and-tragedy/

Text below. Video at the link

Spetsnaz, Beslan and Tragedy
by Mike Perry · September 9, 2012 · Posted In: SOF History
Dawn rousted them from their sleep, the forest encampment providing a peaceful respite from the constant movement of the past days. They were close to their objective and readying themselves for the moment to depart and strike fear into the conscious of a nation.

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Read more: http://sofrep.com/11170/spetsnaz-beslan-and-tragedy/#ixzz265yAkDyN

[Suvorov]

Thanks for the link.

Horrible tragedy that thankfully has not been repeated in this country. While in the end, the planning and execution of the rescue was lacking, the bravery of the guys who went into that school was not.

[TGS]

Thanks for the link.

Horrible tragedy that thankfully has not been repeated in this country. While in the end, the planning and execution of the rescue was lacking, the bravery of the guys who went into that school was not.

I really wonder if we'd do any better. We've never been placed in this situation, nor the situation such as the theater hostage crisis. I obviously don't know one way or the other, but I hope the FBI HRT has massive hostage situations in their playbook and not just the typical hostage crisis we deal with in the US. Even still, I can't imagine an in extremis rescue on such a massive scale going smoothly whatsoever, no matter who's running the show.

[Kyle Reese]

Beslan was truly the nightmare scenario everyone has been dreading, and it came to fruition for the Russians. The Chechens went into the school with only murder and terror in their hearts. No amount of hand holding, Dr.Phil moments or bribes would have changed the outcome. RIP to the fallen.

[machak_silver]

One thing which is usually not mentioned enough is the fact that the hostage rescue operation started AFTER the explosion happened. The explosion was not a result of the assault or any action of special forces. The troops were forced to start the operation.

[Nikuraba29]

http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Beslan-Russian-Tragedy-Americas/dp/0976775301/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347382919&sr=8-1&keywords=beslan

Great book on the incident, including the Russian retaliatory strikes against the planners. This one was also recommended by LtCol Grossman.

S/F

29

[Serpico1985]

What are the chances that if a Beslan were to happen in America they'd put US military forces in cop or FBI gear and let them handel business? Of course it's not legal but they've done that in other countries before.

[Al T.]

Terror in Beslan is not a book I'd be much interested in reading as the author is a fraud and a phony.

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=30958

[Chemsoldier]

Differences between what happened in Beslan and what might happen in a similar situation here:

1. The Russians had a muddled C2 structure at Beslan with central orders sending multiple teams to the area but no clear tactical commander. The US doctrine is pretty clear, the SAIC (from the local FBI office will be in charge of the situation until someone higher than him appoints a different incident commander (perhaps the HRT commander or a SAIC from Washington). Even if the guy is a tool, he will be the tool in charge instead of what they had in Ossetia.
2. In Ossetia, multiple teams, who are normally competitive for prestige and budget, entering the objective at the same time. This leads to poor coordination even though they all wanted it to go well. Most likely you would get a layered dispersion of tactical teams in an American variation. HRT on the objective, FBI Field Office SWAT on inner cordon and Local tactical teams on outer cordon. If HRT needs more bodies on the objective they will likely pull from FBI Field Office SWAT, who they train with and who is their primary recruiting ground for new operators. They will likely integrate much better.
3. Poor coordination with emergency medical and fire department. This could be dorked up here, but likely will not. Our emergency services are pretty good at surging capability when needed, while it will never be fast enough for what we would like, it will likely be much faster. The only wild card I can think of is location, if it happened in rural America will the incident commander make sure capability is brought in from outside such as Nation Guard CH-47s configured for MEDEVAC, ambulances from hundreds of miles away or even a field hospital?
4. Go to hell plan. The team training to do the deliberate take down of the school was off site practicing on a similar building when the explosion occurred and there was insufficient forces on hand to do an immediate take down. It took time to move the teams back to the school. I dont know if even we will have enough ass on the scene to take down that large and complex a target with the assault force off site.

Other interesting questions.
This is of course a nightmare scenario. There will be a tremendous amount of pressure on the President to use our best in this siutation. Will he authorize the use of military CT elements to participate in the response? Could the requisite waivers and authorizations be done in a timely manner? Since they generally are not used in domestic situations, could they be introduced without significant disruption to the incident response? A case in point of this phenomena is the LA riots where the NG and LAPD were making progress at controlling the situation when the response was federalize and all the NG elements were retasked by the new Army commander of the situation.

[Chemsoldier]

What are the chances that if a Beslan were to happen in America they'd put US military forces in cop or FBI gear and let them handel business? Of course it's not legal but they've done that in other countries before.

It is absolutely legal to use the military in CONUS...IF you do the paperwork. Posse Commitatus Act requires a waiver and some particular steps to obtain that waiver. There are also a LOT of different exceptions to PCA.

Pertinent acts are The Insurrection Act and the Posse Commitatus Act. Todd is a lawyer I am sure he can throw out a few more. The most likely reason not to is the time needed to get the paperwork done and get them on site and integrated with the LE response.

[mpd046]

http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Beslan-Russian-Tragedy-Americas/dp/0976775301/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347382919&sr=8-1&keywords=beslan

Great book on the incident, including the Russian retaliatory strikes against the planners. This one was also recommended by LtCol Grossman.

S/F

29

Be wary of any material from John Giduck. There is lots of information on him in several threads on Socnet.com.

Matt

[SteveK]

In all truthfulness, A Beslan-like event that would occur in the United States would in all likelyhood be handles by local and state law enforcement. Since we don't live in a military state the timeframe of such an event would preclude the intervention of military forces. That is why we constantly train all our officers in active shooter response. In case of such an event, everyone becomes a SRT responder. In our area, out SRT team crosstrains with the state police team when we can and have worked together with success. Beyond that and other local response teams, Federal back up is probably the only option and they would probably be days out.