New video footage has emerged that shows the chaotic and brutal end to the Beslan school massacre was caused by Russian security forces and not Chechen fighters. That is the claim being made by a victims' support group. The tape was sent anonymously to the Beslan Mothers' Committee and screened at a local community centre.

The group says the video, apparently taken by an investigator on a hand-held camera, contradicts the official line that the Chechen hostage-takers exploded a device from inside the school gym.

Head of the Mothers' Committee, Susanna Dudiyeva, said that since the crisis in 2004, they had been trying to find out the cause of the first explosion:

"This tape proves the explosions happened outside the building", she added.

The blast blew a hole in the wall of the gym where around a thousand children and parents were being held captive. That and the fierce exchange of gunfire that followed killed hundreds of hostages.

At least one investigator has already claimed that the explosions came from grenades fired by security forces. Another has even said the order came from President Vladimir Putin.

The victims' families have lodged a complaint against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights.

Some 330 people died in the siege, half of them children.

PHOTO CAPTION

Children from Moscow orphanages and survivors of the 2004 siege at Beslan's school No 1 hold hands with caretakers at a summer camp at Lake Seliger near the town of Demiansk some 350 km (217 miles) northwest of Moscow July 24, 2007. (Reuters)