MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- A militant who performed the role of choosing an alternative target if the Beslan school siege went wrong has been detained, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said on Thursday.

    The 24-year-old man, identified as Israpil Khaikharoyev, who also took part in attacks on government buildings in southern Russia in 2004, is a resident of the Chechen town of Achkhoi-Martan, and was put on the federal wanted list after the Beslan attack, Shepel was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

    Khaikharoyev, a member of the group led by Chechen rebel leader Aslanbek Khatuyev, participated in attacks on government buildings in the republic of Ingushetia in June 2004 and prepared an attack on the Nesterovskaya secondary school in Ingushetia that same year just in case the attack on the Beslan school failed, according to Shepel.

    "Khaikharoyev pleaded guilty," Shepel said.

    Armed militants took about 1,200 people hostage on Sept. 1, 2004, in a secondary school in Beslan, a town in southern Russia.

    The standoff ended on the third day after a fierce exchange of gunfire between hostage-takers and government troops. More than 330 people, most of them young school children, were killed in the siege. Enditem