 The carnage at Beslan and the outcry it caused has had an unexpected effect on the tactics employed by Chechen separatists and their allies.Meanwhile, the practice of taking civilians hostages exists among the officers of Russian and local security agencies in Chechnya.On March 1, 2004, officers of security agencies seized more than 30 relatives of former Ichkerian defence minister Magomed Khambiyev, including women, in the Khambiyev family's native village of Benoy in Chechnya's Nozhay-Yurtovsky District.