The Hindu : Lessons from the Moscow siege

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Friday, Nov 15, 2002

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Lessons from the Moscow siege

By P.R. Chari

A national policy on handling hostage situations is needed instead of the present ad hocism.

THE ORDEAL in the Theatre Centre at Dubrovka, Moscow, which began on October 23 ended some three days later with the 40-odd hostage-takers killed and some 118 out of the 700-plus hostages dead. The Kremlin has not issued any official statement regarding these Spetsnaz (commando) operations, except for the President, Vladimir Putin's cryptic remark, "We could not save everyone. Forgive us". In a previous crisis (1995), armed Chechens has occupied a hospital, and some 122 hostages were killed in the rescue attempt made by the Russians, whilst the Chechens escaped with another 150; so the Spetsnaz were obviously determined not to botch this operation.

Piecing together the details of this incident, it seems to have been meticulously planned by the Chechen rebels, who included a large number of women, mostly widows of killed militants. With little evidently to live for, they were ideally suited for recruitment as suicide terrorists. The Chechen hostage-takers had booby-trapped the theatre building and hung grenades on some of the hostages that could be exploded at will, making any conventional rescue operation impossible without risking the lives of the hostages. The Chechens had also announced a time limit for accepting their demands and begun executing hostages to enforce that deadline. The only solution possible without suffering any casualties would have been for Moscow to concede the single-point Chechen demand that Russia cease military operations in Chechnya. That was obviously impossible for Mr. Putin to concede without suffering a tremendous loss of face. Could Mr. Putin have bargained with the Chechens for reaching some via media solution? This would have required dilution of Russia's general policy of not undertaking negotiations with hostage-takers.

In the event, the Spetsnaz decided to risk an operation as unconventional as that adopted by the Chechens by pumping into the theatre building an odourless, colourless gas, which anaesthetised the hostages and the hostage-takers. The commandos then entered the theatre. There was great speculation about the gas used. The Russian Health Minister, Yuri Shevchenko, said that it was a "compound based on fentanyl derivatives", implying that a cocktail of gases was used. Fentanyl is used for providing anaesthesia and is not known to be fatal. Contrary to popular belief, fentanyl is not banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which Russia adheres to, and is permitted for domestic usage under controlled conditions. In fact, the CWC distinguishes between long and short acting gases, permitting the latter being used for medical purposes.

Why were the casualties so high among the hostages? In the absence of fuller details it can only by speculated that the dosage of the gas cocktail used was probably not properly calculated. Nor were medical personnel trained in handling its after-effects. Perhaps, the injection of the gas could not be regulated in the obtaining circumstances. No allowance was probably made also for the hostages being in a weakened physical condition due to exhaustion and extreme anxiety, since they had been imprisoned for over 72 hours. No allowance was obviously possible to be made for different dosages to take account of differentiating factors such as age, sex and body weight, which is possible under hospital conditions. Incidentally, the toll amongst the rescued hostages is likely to increase, since many hostages were reported to be unconscious in different Moscow hospitals after being rescued.

Could this incident, horrendous in its particulars, presage a rapprochement between the Russian Government and the Chechen rebels? Could it lead to peace talks and to Moscow seriously addressing the root causes of the conflict in Chechnya? Several area specialists analysing this issue are highly pessimistic about any such salubrious outcome ensuing. The consensus of opinion is that Mr. Putin would intensify the military operations in Chechnya, taking advantage of Russian attitudes hardening against the Chechens, whilst the international milieu favours strong state action against terrorist organisations. The thesis that has gained currency among these analysts is that Mr. Putin would like to wear down the Chechen resistance before attempting to see a political solution to the problem. He has, in fact, drawn a parallel between America's post 9/11 war against terrorism in Afghanistan and the Russian action in Chechnya. Both these operations have Al-Qaeda as their common enemy, since they were in Afghanistan and are know to be assisting the Chechens. It is also known that the Chechens dominate the Russian mafia, which is largely centred in Moscow. A link could be obtaining therefore between the Chechen hostage-takers and the Chechen mafiosi in Russia. An intensification of military operations in Chechnya, however, could result in the rebellion growing. More terrorist incidents taking place in Moscow and other parts of Russia seem likely in the future.

Several commonalities are apparent between the Moscow hostage-taking incident, the 9/11 events in the United States and the December 13 attack on Parliament House in New Delhi. In all these incidents, the shared factors were the militants' desire to arrest international attention to their cause by a spectacular terrorist action, use innovative means to achieve their ambition by thinking and acting asymmetrically, thereby maximising the surprise element in their favour, and utilise suicide terrorists, who are generically described as being "beyond deterrence".

So what are the lessons to be learnt from the Moscow incident? Three are of particular relevance to India. First, there is an urgent need for evolving a hostage policy. Several incidents in the recent past have witnessed the pathetic caving in of the Indian Government to the hostage-takers demands for rescuing the hostages. The hijacking of IC-813 flight, en route to New Delhi from Kathmandu, to Kandahar witnessed the spectacle of the Foreign Minister flying in the same aircraft as three dreaded militants who were released to secure the return of the hijacked aircraft and passengers. The humiliation of the Government of India apart it is worth reflecting what message was conveyed thereby to potential and prospective kidnappers, hijackers and hostage-takers? What will happen if a Moscow-type incident takes place in India? This question is not hypothetical: the Akshardham temple incident could have developed on the same lines as in Moscow. A national policy on handling hostage situations is, therefore, needed instead of the present ad hocism.

Second, the need for intelligence about terrorist organisations and their plans is of the essence to prevent such incidents. This calls for promoting greater public awareness about terrorist activities to obtain wider cooperation to detect them before they strike. It also requires greater regional and international cooperation to coordinate action against terrorist organisations and their links within organised crime and other nefarious activities in society. It is most important incidentally that counter-intelligence operations be undertaken in a covert and low-profile manner to succeed; this requires that bombastic public statements be strictly eschewed.

Third, the temptation to blame the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and our neighbours for our failures of intelligence, political management, governance and so on is, no doubt, useful to deflect public attention, but is leading us nowhere in our own war against terrorism. That war can only be won if the searchlight is turned inwards to reflect on our own inadequacies, and not remain perpetually focussed outwards.

(The writer is Director, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi.)

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