9:11am UK, Saturday September 04, 2004

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to crack down on anyone supporting the gunmen behind the school siege in Beslan.

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Mr Putin: Hardline approach

"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred and blow up the whole of our North Caucasus," Mr Putin told local security officials.

"Anyone who will feels sympathetic towards such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism."

Mr Putin was speaking after making an unannounced visit to Beslan, in North Ossetia.

The school siege comes after the near-simultaneous crash of two airplanes last week in which 90 people died.

The crashes were blamed on Chechen suicide bombers, as was an explosion in a Moscow metro station which killed nine.

Mr Putin has made a tough line against the rebels a key plank of his presidency and has refused all talks with separatists, even more moderate activists.

There have been calls for him to abandon his hardline policy and seek a political solution to the problems in Chechnya.

These have come from a number of countries including Poland.