"The task had been set" by former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and separatist warlord Shamil Basayev, said a captured rebel.

Russian began observing a two-day mourning in honour of the children killed in Beslan.

The Russian president said the militants had tried to incite inter-ethnic strife in the region and warned against succumbing to such provocation.

Some 20 masked persons dressed in black burst into the courtyard of the school in North Ossetia and threatened to blow up the building if troops stormed it.

The Pakistan Army bombarded suspected militant hideouts with helicopter gunships in tribal areas near the Afghan border, killing five Al Qaeda militants while losing an equal number of soldiers on the third day of the fighting

The two were seized at Moscow airport on Thursday, the day Qatar charged two Russians with involvement in the killing of a former Chechen leader in the Gulf Arab state on February 13.

The Nation said one of the two bombers involved in the suicide attack belonged to the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed or its breakaway group Khudam-ul-Islam.

Forty persons were hurt when suspected Chechen rebels rammed an explosive-laden truck into the regional headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Services in Ingushetia.

The attack is suspected to be the work of Chechen separatist rebels.

India expresses solidarity with the Russian government in its efforts to eradicate terrorism, a government spokesman said.

Chechnya's administration chief Ahmad Kadyrov and Moscow-appointed Premier Mikhail Babyche were not in the\n\nbuilding when the strike took place, according to NTV channel.