Another controversy was the use of tank cannons, portable flamethrowers, and other weapons such as grenade launchers in Beslan, North Ossetia. On 3 September 2004, the local school was taken over by Chechen-led militants from Ingushetia, and was subsequently raided by the heavily armed FSB special forces of Alpha and Vympel. The operation was overseen by the head of the Special Purpose Center, Gen. Alexander Tikhonov, who forbade extinguishing the fire in the school, while the actual attack was personally led by Gen. Pronichev, and supported by tanks, armoured personnel carriers and attack helicopters. John McAleese, a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) team which had liberated the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980, immediately called it one of the worst hostage rescue attempts he had seen or heard about. The Beslan siege turned out to be particularly bloody, costing the lives of more than 333 people, including 186 children (age 1 to 17), 111 relatives, guests and friends, 17 school staff members and 10 Alpha members. According to the government, "... the burn impact [on the dead hostages' bodies] was "post mortem" ...," and thus there were no grounds for a criminal case against troops who used flamethrowers during the assault. No ballistic tests were carried out, and prosecutors were not allowed to examine the special forces' weapons to determine who exactly killed the hostages. In 2007, 447 survivors and relatives of victims of the Beslan massacre brought a complaint against the Russian government in seven applications to the ECHR.