That's not quite what happened. There was not a deliberate raid today to free them.

What happened was a van pulled up to the building to help the people wounded in the taking of the hostages. This was understood by both sides to be a peaceful action without incident. This was the start of what was looking to be peaceful negotiations. However, some kids misunderstood it as a rescue attempt and bolted.

This was the mistake right here. The terrorists, instead of letting the kids go as a sign of good faith (which they would have done if had they been thinking rationally and not panicking) opened fire on the running kids to stop them. This forced the nearby troops to fire upon the terrorists to save the kids lives.

Upon hearing the gunfire one of the terrorists set off his suicide belt in the gymnasium which basically sent the entire area into confusion due to collateral explosions and Russia was forced to swarm the place with every available man and get as many people out alive as possible before the building collapsed and/or the terrorists killed every hostage.


While the incident was horrible and many people were injured and killed the Russian authorities at the scene deserve a lot of credit for their quick thinking. Their understanding of the situation and willingness to risk going into a very dangerous situation probably saved the life of every hostage who made it out alive.