Russia Hostage-taking Part Of Larger Conflict With Extremists: Rumsfeld

WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday depicted a hostage-taking at a Russian school that left hundreds dead as part of a larger conflict with Muslim extremists.
"Civilized people everywhere can only express sympathy and solidarity with the Russian people," he said at a Pentagon press conference.
Rumsfeld said the attack was only the latest in a long line of extremist violence going back to the 1983 suicide bombing that killed 241 marines in Beirut.
"This is not something that's new," he said, noting that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in the 1990s.
"But what we saw last week was a very gripping, vivid example of the extremes to which terrorists will go and are not only willing to go, but do in fact go and are going," he said.
Russian officials have said the attack on the school in Breslan was carried out by an armed band linked to a Chechen rebel leader.