MOSCOW (AFP) - The head of Russia's FSB security service admitted that plans were made for storming a school full of hostages but were not ready when the standoff erupted in violence, according to a lawmaker.
Addressing a special session of the upper house of the Russian legislature, FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev said the violence was triggered by an accidental blast in the school, Federation Council member Alexei Mitrofanov said.
"We planned an assault, but we were not ready at that exact moment," Mitrofanov quoted Patrushev as saying during the session, called to discuss new Russian security measures and the situation in the north Caucasus.
Patrushev's comments as reported by Mitrofanov marked a departure from remarks by other Russian officials who have so far stated that there were no plans to use violence to end the hostage siege at the school in Beslan.
The bloody culmination of the standoff on September 3 involved exchanges of heavy fire not just between the militants holding the hostages and security forces but also with armed local residents.
The Beslan hostage crisis, the deadliest ever of its kind, resulted in the deaths of at least 339 people, half of them children, as well as the killing of 31 gunmen.
Quizzed by an MP over the authorities' reluctance to release the exact number of hostages taken during the crisis, Patrushev said that that information was not given because it "needed to be confirmed," according to Mitrofanov.
Russian authorities said there were 354 hostages amid reports that there were some 1,200 held in the school.
Patrushev also brushed off criticism over his absence from the scene, saying he, like other Russian officials, "feared terrorist strikes in other regions if they all visited Beslan at the same time."
The Federation Council and the Duma will create a 21-member parliamentary commission to probe the hostage-taking.
Of the 11 chosen from the council, "five have experience of working in the law and order forces and six are civilians," said council president Serguei Mironov.
"In selecting them, we took into consideration the right of these people to access top secret documents," Mironov said, adding that no commission members would have the right to comment publicly during the enquiry.