source and nature of the explosions: According to the December 2005 report by Stanislav Kesayev, deputy speaker of the North Ossetian parliament, some witnesses said that a federal-forces sniper had shot a militant whose foot was on a dead man's switch detonator, triggering the first blast. The captured terrorist Nur-Pashi Kulayev has testified to this, while a local policewoman and hostage named Fatima Dudiyeva said that she was shot in the hand "from outside" just before the explosion and that there were three blasts: two small explosions at 13:03 followed by a larger one at 13:29. According to the State Duma member Yuri Savelyev, a weapons and explosives expert, the exchange of gunfire did not begin with explosions inside the school building, but with two shots fired from outside the school and most of the homemade explosive devices installed by the terrorists did not explode at all. He said that the first shot was most likely fired by an RPO-A Shmel infantry rocket at the roof of the nearby five-story building at No. 37, School Lane, and aimed at the gymnasium's attic, while the second was fired from an RPG-27 grenade launcher located at No. 41 on the same street, and destroyed part of the gym wall. Empty shells and launchers were found on the roofs of these houses, and alternative weapons mentioned in the report were RPG-26 or RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades. Savelyev, a dissenting member of the federal commission headed by Alexander Torshin (see below), said that these explosions killed many of the hostages and that dozens more died in the resulting fire. Yuri Ivanov, another parliamentary investigator, further contended that the grenades were fired on the direct orders of President Putin. Several witnesses testified during the trial of Kulayev that the initial explosions were caused by projectiles fired from outside. In the final report, Alexander Torshin, head of the Russian parliamentary commission that concluded its work in December 2006, said that the militants had started the battle by intentionally detonating bombs among the hostages, to the surprise of Russian negotiators and commanders. That statement went beyond previous government accounts that mentioned that the bombs had exploded in an unexplained accident. Torshin's 2006 report said that the taking of hostages was planned as a suicide attack from the beginning and that no storming of the building was prepared in advance. According to testimonies by Nur-Pashi Kulayev and several former