At least 322 dead, al-Qaeda linked group claims responsib.
Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- At least 322 people, half of them children, died at the Russian school where terrorists took hundreds of parents and pupils hostage, state news service Itar-Tass reported, citing Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky.
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A group loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the assault in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site, Islamic Minbar. The authenticity of the statement cannot be verified.
``The killing of the Russian Crusader Butchers in Ossetia is the start of a street and gang war the heroic mujaheeden will conduct against the European security forces,'' the statement said.
We have to take claims of responsibility with a grain of salt (recall that an al-Qaeda linked group claimed responsibility for the big US electrical blackout a year or so ago).
Cheers,
Scott.