|
|
 |
 |
 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||||||||
          |
Chechen rebels take hostages; demand end to war in
Chechnya
MOSCOW - About 50 armed Chechen rebels stormed a crowded theater during a musical show last night and took hundreds of theater-goers hostage in an audacious and well-planned attack. Police and security forces surrounded the building amid sporadic gunfire. Moscow
police spokesman Valery Gribakin said about 100 women and children had
been let out of the theater, and news reports quoted some of them as saying
there were pools of blood in the theater halls. Those
released did not see any dead bodies, but said the hostage-takers had
beaten some in the audience. Two pregnant women were later released. "The
terrorists are demanding one thing - the end to the war in Chechnya,"
Gribakin said. Russian
news reports said the rebels offered to release 50 more hostages if Akhmad
Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya's Moscow-appointed administration, came
to the theater. Earlier
reports said the armed men and women were laying land mines inside the
theater and had explosives strapped to their bodies, which they threatened
to blow up if Russian security forces stormed the building. Gribakin,
the police spokesman, said there were about 600 people inside the theater
when it was seized Russia is involved in a bloody war in Chechnya, seeking to put down a decade-old separatist insurrection in the oil-rich region. News reports cited a Chechen rebel Web site as saying the group was led by Movsar Barayev, the nephew of warlord Arbi Barayev, who was reportedly killed last year. The Web site said some of the women hostage takers were widows of Chechen rebels killed in the war with Russia.
|