The seizure of the school took place on September 1–the traditional start of the Russian school year, referred to as "First September" or Day of Knowledge. On this day, the children, accompanied by their parents and other relatives, attend ceremonies hosted by their school. Because of the pupils and family members attending the Day of Knowledge festivities, the number of people in the schools was considerably higher than usual for a normal school day. Early in the morning, a group of several dozen heavily-armed separatist guerrillas left a forest encampment located in the vicinity of the village of Psedakh in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia, east of North Ossetia and west of war-torn Chechnya. The rebels wore green military camouflage and black balaclava masks, and in some cases were also wearing explosive belts. On the way to Beslan, on a country road near the North Ossetian village of Khurikau, they had captured an Ingush police officer, Major Sultan Gurazhev. Gurazhev escaped after reaching the town and went to the district police department to inform that his duty handgun and badge were taken away.
At 09:10 local time, the rebels arrived at Beslan in a GAZelle police van and a GAZ-66 military truck. Many witnesses and independent experts claim that there were, in fact, two groups of attackers, and that the first group was already at the school when the second group arrived by truck. At first, some at the school mistook the guerrillas for Russian forces practicing a security drill. However, the attackers resolved this misconception by shooting in the air and forcing everybody from the school grounds into the building. During the initial chaos, up to 50 people managed to flee and alert authorities to the situation. A number of people also managed to hide in the boiler room. After an exchange of gunfire with police and an armed local civilian, in which it was reported one attacker was shot dead and two were wounded, the militants seized the school building. Reports of the death toll from this shootout ranged from two to eight people, while more than a dozen people were injured.
The attackers took approximately 1,200 hostages (the number of hostages was initially downplayed by the government to merely 200–400, and then for an unknown reason announced to be exactly 354; in 2005, their number was put at 1,128). They herded their captives into the school's gym and confiscated all their mobile phones under threat of death, and ordered everyone to speak in Russian and only when spoken to. When a father named Ruslan Betrozov stood to calm people and repeat the rules in the local language, Ossetic, a gunman approached him, asked Betrozov if he was done, and then shot him in the head. Another father named Vadim Bolloyev, who refused to kneel, was also shot by a captor and then bled to death. Their bodies were dragged from the sports hall; this left a trail of blood visible in the video later made by the hostage-takers.
After gathering the hostages in the gym, the attackers singled out among the male teachers, school employees and fathers the 15–20 strongest adults they apparently thought might represent a threat, and took them into a corridor next to the cafeteria on the second floor, where soon a deadly blast took place. Apparently an explosive belt on one of the female bombers detonated, killing another female bomber (it was also claimed the second woman died from a bullet wound) and several of the selected hostages, as well as mortally injuring one male terrorist. According to the version presented by the surviving hostage-taker, the blast was actually triggered by the "Polkovnik", the group leader, when he set off the bomb by remote control to kill those who openly disagreed about the child hostages and intimidate other possible dissenters. The hostages still alive were ordered to lie down and then shot with automatic rifle by another gunman; all but one of them were killed. The militants then forced other hostages to throw the bodies out of the building and to wash the blood off the floor. A hostage named Aslan Kudzayev, who was forced to throw the bodies, escaped by jumping out the window; the authorities briefly detained him as a suspected hostage-taker. Karen Mdinaradze, the Alania football team's cameraman, survived the explosion as well as the shooting; when discovered to be still alive, he was allowed to return to the sports hall, where he finally lost consciousness.
Around 13:00 on September 3, 2004, it was agreed to allow four Ministry of the Emergency Situations medical workers in two ambulances to remove 20 bodies from the school grounds, as well as to bring the corpse of the killed rebel to the school. However, at 13:03, when the paramedics approached the school, an explosion was heard from the gymnasium. The hostage-takers then opened fire, killing two of them. The other two took cover behind their vehicle. The second, "strange-sounding", explosion was heard 22 seconds later. At 13:05 the fire on the roof of the sports hall started and soon the burning rafters and roofing fell onto the hostages below, many of them injured but still living. Eventually, the entire roof collapsed, turning the room into an inferno. The flames reportedly killed some 160 people (more than half of all hostage fatalities).
Part of the sports hall wall was demolished by the explosions, allowing some hostages to escape. Local militia opened fire, and the militants returned fire. A number of people were killed in the crossfire. Russian officials say militants shot hostages as they ran, and the military fired back. The government asserts that once the shooting started, troops had no choice but to storm the building. However, some accounts from the town's residents have contradicted that official version of events. Police Lieutenant Colonel Elbrus Nogayev, whose wife and daughter died in the school, said: "I heard a command saying, 'Stop shooting! Stop shooting!' while other troops' radios said, 'Attack!'" As the fighting began, an oil company president and negotiator Mikhail Gutseriyev (an ethnic Ingush) phoned the hostage-takers; he heard "You tricked us!" in answer. Five hours later, Gutseriyev and his interlocutor reportedly had their last conversation, during which the man said: "The blame is yours and the Kremlin's."
A chaotic battle broke out as the special forces fought to enter the school. The forces included the assault groups of the FSB and the associated troops of the Russian Army and the Russian Interior Ministry, supported by a number of T-72 tanks from Russia's 58th Army (commandeered by Tikhonov from the military on 2 September), BTR-80 wheeled armoured personnel carriers and armed helicopters, including at least one Mi-24 attack helicopter. Many local civilians also joined in the chaotic battle, having brought along their own weapons (at least one of the armed volunteers is known to have been killed). At the same time, regular conscript soldiers reportedly fled the scene as the fighting began; civilian witnesses claimed that the local police also had panicked, even firing in the wrong direction.
At least three but as many as nine powerful Shmel rockets were fired at the school from the positions of the special forces (three or nine empty disposable tubes were later found on the rooftops of nearby apartment blocks). The use of the Shmel rockets, classified in Russia as flamethrowers and in the West as thermobaric weapons, was initially denied, but later admitted by the government. A report by an aide to the military prosecutor of the North Ossetian garrison stated that RPG-26 rocket-propelled grenades were used as well. The rebels also used grenade launchers, firing at the Russian positions in the apartment buildings. By 15:00, two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. However, fighting was still continuing on the grounds as evening fell, including a the resistance from a group of militants holding out in the school's basement. During the battle, a group of some 13 militants broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Several of them were believed to have entered a nearby two-story building, which was destroyed by tanks and flamethrowers around 21:00, according to the Ossetian committee's findings. Another group of militants appeared to head back over the railway, chased by helicopters into the town.
Firefighters, who were called by Andreyev two hours after the fire started, were not prepared to battle the blaze that raged in the gymnasium. One fire truck crew arrived after two hours at their own initiative but with only 53 gallons of water and unable to connect to the nearby hydrants, and the first water came nearly two and a half hours after the start of the fire at 15:28; the second fire engine arrived at 15:43. Few ambulances were available to transport the hundreds of injured victims, who were mostly driven to hospital in private cars. One suspected militant was lynched on the scene by a mob of civilians, an event filmed by the Sky News crew, while an unarmed militant was captured alive by the OMON troops while trying to hide under their truck (he was later identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev). Some of the dead insurgents appeared to be mutilated by the commandos. Sporadic explosions and gunfire continued at night despite reports that all resistance by militants had been suppressed, until some 12 hours after the first explosions. Early the next day Putin ordered the borders of North Ossetia closed while some hostage-takers were apparently still pursued.
At least 396 people, mostly hostages, were killed during the crisis. By September 7, 2004, Russian officials revised the death toll down to 334, including 156 children, but close to 200 people remained missing or unidentified. It was claimed by the locals that over 200 of those killed were found with burns, and 100 or more of them burned when still alive. The latest reported fatality was 33-year-old librarian Yelena Avdonina, who succumbed to her wounds on December 8, 2006
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