sentences:  Basayev himself said that he had created a special unit of suicide fighters to carry out "acts of sabotage" in retaliation for the market attack.Basayev and the formation, named Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs, took responsibility for a series of suicide bombing and mass hostage taking incidents over the next five years, culminating in the disastrous Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004 that claimed more than 300 victims.The attack was met with an official denial on the part of the Russian authorities, who insisted that no civilians died in the blasts and provided a number of widely varying and conflicting alternative explanations.