VLADIKAVKAZ. Nov 29 (Interfax-AVN) - North Ossetia's parliamentary commission has established that the storming of School No. 1 in Beslan in early September 2004 involved grenade launchers, flame-throwers and tank fire, commission chairman Stanislav Kesayev said on Tuesday.
Reports vary on security agencies' measures on September 3, he said.
"If we compare reports issued by the Emergency Situations Ministry and the prosecutor's office, some of them say that bomb-removal operations were in progress in the school building at 9:00 p.m. Moscow time (1700 GMT) on September 3, 2004. Other reports suggest that tanks were firing at the building at that time," Kesayev said.
"Documents handed over to the commission do not allow us to be totally confident about the cause of the explosion that triggered the storming of the school on September 3," he said.
The investigation also mentions poor coordination during the hostage-release operation.
"Varying reports on the number of people taken hostage in the school building influenced the nature of the operation," he said.
A lack of clarity over the authorities' actions "made the hostages' parents and relatives believe that force should not be used. On September 2, they suggested forming a human chain around the school building to prevent security agencies from storming it," Kesayev said.