There are two news stories concerning a man named Kamel Rabat Bouralha and the Beslan attack. The Sofia News Agency's story, UK Suspect Arrested over Beslan Attack, reports that Bouralha has been arrested in connection with the attack:

A British citizen has been arrested on suspicions of involvement in Beslan school massacre in which 300 people, half of them children, died.

A member of the group responsible for the Beslan school massacre last month is a British citizen who attended the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in north London, The Observer reported.

Then there is the Guardian/Observer story -- London mosque link to Beslan -- that the Sofia News agency names as its source:

A member of the group responsible for the Beslan school massacre last month is a British citizen who attended the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in north London, The Observer can reveal.

Two other members of the group, loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, are also believed to have been active in the UK until less than three years ago. They are suspected of taking part in the raid on the school in which 300 people, half of them children, died.

Russian security sources described Kamel Rabat Bouralha, 46 years old and the oldest of the three, as a 'key aide' of Basayev, who has a £5.5 million price on his head. Basayev has boasted of training the men who took control of the school and wired it with explosives. Investigators believe that the three men, all Algerian-born, travelled to Chechnya from London to take part in fighting there in 2001.

Russian investigators are thought to have now identified most of the 33 men who occupied the school in Beslan last month. They include two Algerians in their mid-30s called Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia. Both are thought to have been based in London until recently. Like Bouralha, they too are believed to have attended Finsbury Park mosque and to have joined the network of groups loyal to Basayev on arrival in Chechnya.

General Ilya Shabalkin said that Bouralha had been detained while attempting to leave Russia for medical treatment in Azerbaijan. 'He says he is innocent, but there is strong evidence of his involvement in a grave crime,' Shabalkin said.

It is not clear to me what is being claimed. Is Bouralha thought to have been one of the attackers? Or just one of the organizers? Do I also gather that two of the dead attackers' bodies have been identified as Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia? Is the Guardian story just poorly written? Or is it the situation (rather than the writing) that is murky?

It seems to me that this arrest and its surrounding narrative have to be regarded in the context of Putin's desire to portray the attack as al Qaeda-related rather than as a reaction ot his policies in Chechnya.