Beslan - More Details - II

The Jamestown summary reproduces without criticism that part of the Moskovsky komsomolets report which brings up again the claim, often repeated by the Russian state authorities, that the Beslan attackers were found to have been using heroin and morphine, traces of which were said to have been found in their bodies. As has been pointed out by a number of observers, both in Russia and in the West, this seems rather unlikely. On May 16 newsru.com published an account of a press conference given by Aleksandr Torshin, deputy chairman of the Federal Council and head of the Beslan Commission of inquiry. The press account refuted Torshin's claims and added new information:

The terrorists kept fighting because of "combat narcotics" from the arsenal of the Russian GRU

Let us recall that Torshin confirmed the data about the fact that the terrorists used narcotics all the time. However, according to him, what kind of narcotics they were is one more mystery.

"They assure us that these were traditional narcotics: heroin and morphine. I'm not a specialist, but I read a lot on this subject and I know: a combat-effective state can not be maintained for three days on heroin. Even less so on morphine, which acts as a soporific. Narcotics were found in the bodies of 20 fighters. But indeed for the terrorists it was necessary to control hostages around the clock, and there were more than 1200 of them, and on a large territory ".

"We suspect that this was a combat narcotic, invented by the Americans as early as 1943. By the way, the use of this narcotic in Beslan is one more reason to assume the possible participation of foreign special services in preparation for that act of terror. Fighters who received 4-5 bullet wounds continued to actively fire back. One of them was hit from an underbarrel grenade launcher and all his guts came out, but he got up again and almost took out two more of our men."

"There were some strange specimens among the bandits. One had lost his right hand two years ago, he shot with his left. Another had a foot missing, and no fingers on his left hand. Two of them only had one eye. They would hardly have been able to hold out, even for a short time, without this combat narcotic," says the head of commission.

In fact, however, the "Beslan" terrorists used a narcotic developed in Russia. What is involved here is a psychotropic substance, designated by the abbreviation of VIL. It has existed already for many years, and only the GRU Spetsnaz has it. According to completely reliable information, VIL was used in Chechnya in 1994-1995.

At the present time there are five modifications of it - with serial numbers from 1 to 5. If the use of this substance in Beslan is confirmed, the inevitable question arises: how did this combat narcotic from the GRU's arsenal turn out to be at the terrorists' disposal?