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One dead as Chechens hold 100s in theater siege
( 2002-10-25 09:09 ) (7 )

Hundreds of hostages, including many children, endured a second night of captivity on Friday after a Chechen "suicide squad" laid siege to a packed Moscow theater, killing one woman who tried to escape.

The brazen guerrilla attack in the Russian capital, carried out by up to 40 heavily armed men and women seeking a Russian troop withdrawal from their homeland, drew condemnation from world leaders and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.

The guerrillas, armed with guns and explosives, held Russian security forces at bay by threatening to blow up the theater and their 700 captives if an attempt was made to storm it.

Two women managed to escape on Thursday by clambering through a window during the tense stand-off, marked by sporadic negotiations between Russian officials and the Chechens.

As police tried to help them scramble away from the building, the Chechens fired a grenade launcher at them, wounding one of the women.

The rebels, calling themselves a suicide squad, made threats on a Chechen web site and through hostages to blow up the theater or begin killing captives unless their demands were met.

NTV television on Friday broadcast the first pictures of the guerrillas, showing three men in camouflage uniforms and a woman, her face obscured by a black headscarf bearing an inscription in Arabic.

She was armed with a pistol and fingering what appeared to be a detonator attached to explosives bound to her waist. The NTV crew were accompanied by a doctor who took in two plastic bags of medication.

NTV's correspondent Sergei Dedukh said the hostages had been divided into two groups, one on the ground floor, the other on the theater's balcony.

Sunday Times correspondent Mark Franchetti, who has been in and out of the theater several times during the drama, quoted the group's commander Movsar Barayev as saying the guerrillas were "in good spirits and that their dream was to become smertniki (suicide fighters)."

Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera showed a tape of what it said was one of the black-clad male rebels saying: "Each of us is ready to sacrifice for God and the independence of Chechnya. We seek death more than you seek life."

One hostage, Russian heart specialist Maria Shkolnikova, who was later released from captivity, told Reuters by mobile phone that the rebels had wired the theater hall with explosives -- in aisles, seats and even some of the hostages themselves.

PUTIN SCRAPS TRAVEL PLANS

President Vladimir Putin, wrestling with his biggest challenge in two and a half years in power, scrapped plans to meet President Bush at the weekend in Mexico and canceled trips to Germany and Portugal to deal with the drama.

Looking grim-faced and drained, he told the nation the rebel operation was a "terrorist act planned abroad," but he said the top priority was to save the lives of the hostages.

World leaders rallied behind the beleaguered Kremlin leader and called for united action against acts of terror.

Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called him to offer support and solidarity while the U.N. Security Council, acting at Russia's request, unanimously condemned the "heinous" guerrilla attack and demanded the hostages' release.

Britain said it was sending a team of counter-terrorist experts to help secure the safe release of the hostages, and U.S. ambassador to Moscow Alexander Vershbow said Washington was ready to offer intelligence support.

FSB security service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said the guerrillas shot a woman dead as she tried to escape when they seized the theater some four kilometers (three miles) southeast of the Kremlin on Wednesday night.

FSB officials said 75 foreigners, including Australians, Austrians, Britons, Germans and three Americans, were among the roughly 700 men, women and children being held in conditions that grew grimmer by the hour. There were diabetics among those held and some people with heart conditions, officials said.

"The only food they have is water and chocolate. We think they must be hungry, so the hostage takers must be too," Ignatchenko told reporters outside the building.

One of two Jordanian doctors who had been allowed inside the theater said the rebels were dealing with people "normally," but that food was becoming a necessity.

"There are very many children, they need medicine," he said.

Out in the street, anxious relatives waited holding photos of children and grandchildren still held captive inside. Others tried to contact their kin inside the hall by mobile phone. But phone batteries were running down and communications becoming more infrequent.

Contacts with the hostage-takers appeared erratic at best.

Hostage Tatyana Solnyshkina, speaking earlier by mobile telephone, appealed to the security forces live on NTV: "There are a lot of explosives. Don't open fire on them. I am very scared, I ask you please do not start attacking."

"It's a nightmare," said Yekaterina Ostankhova, a woman in her 70s whose 19-year-old grandson, a theater decorator, was inside. "What's next? This is the capital of all places. I've come here and I've heard nothing. I'm just standing here.

REBELS CALL FOR END TO CHECHEN WAR

The Chechen news web site www.kavkaz.org reported what it said was a statement by Barayev. "There's more than a thousand people here. No one will get out of here alive and they'll die with us if there's any attempt to storm the building," the web site quoted him saying.

He called on Putin to stop the war and pull his troops out of Chechnya if he wanted to save the hostages' lives.

Reports quoting officials said the rebels had freed around 150 hostages on Wednesday, including up to 20 children and some Muslims, plus a handful more on Wednesday. But the FSB's Ignatchenko said just 39 people had been freed.

Iosif Kobzon, a member of parliament and entertainer taking part in negotiations, told Interfax news agency: "When I asked them to free others, they said they had already let the three smallest ones go and would release no one else."

Liberal deputies Irina Khakamada and Grigory Yavlinsky separately met the guerrillas and later briefed Putin. No details filtered out.

The hostage-taking is the most audacious Chechen attack since the first Chechen war of 1994 to 1996. Russia has fought on and off since 1994 to quell the revolt in Chechnya, which costs lives daily among troops and civilians.

Putin's decision as a politically inexperienced prime minister in October 1999 to order troops back into Chechnya helped to catapult him into the Kremlin. His firm handling and public fighting talk made him Russia's most trusted politician.

Western accusations of human rights abuses against civilians in devastated Chechnya have died down since Putin threw Moscow's backing behind the U.S.-led global war on terrorism following last year's September 11 attacks in the United States.

And Russia has linked its struggle in Chechnya to the international struggle against terrorism.