London's Sun is anything but a prestige newspaper, but it is editorially sound and its news coverage is often vivid and interesting. Today's Sun has a series of stories on the Beslan massacre, here, here, and here, including a number of accounts by surviving hostages. Their stories are horrifying, as you would expect. For some reason, though, this one affected me the most:

A 15-year-old boy last night emerged as one of the siege heroes.

Kazbek Dzaragasov fled for his life with pal Sado Nazriyv, 16, when the terrorists burst in.

But the brave teenager turned back when he realised younger sister Agunda was still in her third-grade class. The siblings were last seen on Thursday by a freed woman who told Sado they were huddled together on the gym floor.

The Sun editorializes:

If 9/11 was stunning in its scale of slaughter, then Beslan was stunning for its callous barbarity.

After this, nowhere in the world can consider itself safe.

The revelation that ten of the hostage-takers were Arab mercenaries, not Chechen rebels, puts Russia in a state of war.

In a week, two jetliners have been blown from the sky, a Tube station has been blasted and now more than 150 are dead in a school.

The atrocities bear all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, the authors of so much misery.

The White House was swift to condemn the “barbaric act” in Russia.

America knows the pain of terrorism — and understands how vital it is that we all stand shoulder to shoulder on this global battlefield.

When President Bush promised the Republican convention in New York that he would establish a safer world, his message echoed far wider than his party or his nation.

Bush, with the backing of Tony Blair and other allies, is fighting for every peace-loving person on the planet.

Those who criticise the Bush-Blair alliance, wrongly in The Sun’s view, must open their eyes to what happened in Beslan.

We can never appease terrorists. We can never afford to sit back and take the soft option.

We must hit them first — and hard — before they hit us.

Compare that to yesterday's editorial in the New York Times:

Yesterday's botched rescue attempt by Russian forces at the Beslan middle school left at least 200 hostages dead and raised serious questions about President Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis.

Moscow has responded to the Chechen issue mainly with force and intransigence. That has been politically popular among a majority of Russians, and it has undoubtedly been satisfying for Mr. Putin to present himself as a resolute, tough leader. The practical consequence, however, has been that an already dreadful problem is now very much worse.

President Putin has never been strong on diplomatic nuance. But unless he now opens a serious negotiating channel with legitimate Chechen leaders outside the Moscow-backed puppet government, things can only get worse.

To be fair, the Times did have some criticism for the terrorists, too:

But the terrorists' tactics harden the feelings of the Russian public, diminish international sympathy for them and make innocent Chechens the target of suspicion and fear.

Yes, it's certainly unfortunate when terrorists use the wrong "tactics." Pathetic.

Posted by John at 11:55 AM  |    |  

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