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Many dead as Moscow siege ends
26/10/2002 08:16 - (SA)
Moscow - A total of 34 Chechen rebels were killed and several others were taken captive when Russian security forces stormed a Moscow theatre where 700 people had been held hostage, state security chief Nikolai Patrushev said.
Russian news agencies said Patrushev gave the figures for casualties among the guerrillas in a report to President Vladimir Putin.
He was quoted as saying of the rebels: "None of them managed to get away." Earlier, officials had appealed to Muscovites to be on the lookout for guerrillas who may have escaped during the mayhem.
Patrushev, head of the FSB domestic security service, said there had been no casualties among any of the security forces in the course of the operation.
The Chechen commander Movsar Barayev, was among those killed in the assault, which Russia's deputy interior minister said had prevented a massacre of those seized while watching a Russian musical on Wednesday evening.
Some hostages executed
Officials said 67 hostages died, and that none of them were foreigners. There were some 75 foreigners among the hostages. Officials earliers said at least two hostages were executed by the guerrillas before the storming began. A woman hostage had been shot dead early in the siege while trying to escape.
"We succeeded in preventing mass deaths and the collapse of the building which we had been threatened with," Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev told reporters outside the theatre as ambulances took away survivors of the ordeal.
The rebels, who had rigged up explosives throughout the building, had threatened to take start killing their hostages early on Saturday if they did not see evidence that their demands that Russian troops pull out of Chechnya were being met.
Vasiliyev said some gunmen may have escaped during the hour or so of mayhem and urged Muscovites to be on the lookout:
"If they come and give themselves up now, we will spare their lives. If this does not happen, we will track them down because we view them as particularly dangerous criminals who will be shot on sight."
Hostages started trying to escape
President Vladimir Putin, forced to cancel a string of foreign visits to handle the crisis, was informed of the operation in the Kremlin, a presidential spokesperson said.
The end of the siege, which brought the distant Chechen war to the heart of his capital, will be a relief to President Putin, though any sense of triumph may depend heavily on the cost in civilian lives - a toll that was as yet unclear.
A photographer saw many bodies lying on the pavement in front of the theatre. Some guerrillas were led out with their hands bound behind their backs. Preliminary reports said there were no dead among the security forces.
"The rebels had started killing the hostages. They killed two people and the hostages then started trying to escape," Sergei Ignatchenko, spokesman for the FSB domestic security service, told reporters at the scene.
"Having heard gunfire, special forces rushed into the building. There were dead and injured among both hostages and terrorists. The evacuation of the hostages has begun."
Fleet of ambulances
More than an hour after the siege ended, doctors were tending to unconscious victims still lying inside the theatre.
Scores of other had been rushed to hospital in a fleet of ambulances. At least 100 were being treated for shock in one Moscow hospital. A car packed with women and children drove quickly away from the scene shortly after the assault started.
A pensioner living about 50m from the theatre, her eyes red and on the verge of tears, said: "It was like being in hell. I couldn't sleep, I heard the sirens and now all I can do is walk my dog and hope that some are still alive."
Another security official, Pavel Kudryavtsev, said the guerrillas had detonated many of the explosives they had attached to columns bearing the theatre's ceiling when it became clear the security forces were moving in.
Putin's toughest test
Some of the women in the self-styled "suicide squad" had been filmed earlier in the siege with what they said were explosives strapped to their waists. But it was not clear if they had set off the charges.
The guerrillas' daring raid had set Putin the toughest test of his two and a half years in the Kremlin. His startling rise to the presidency was largely based on his sending troops back into Chechnya in 1999 after a three-year absence, a popular move which earned him a reputation as a tough and effective leader.
Humiliated by the audacious rebel attack, Putin went on national television on Friday evening to say he was open to talks with Chechen guerrillas, but under his terms.
"We are open to any kind of contacts," a sombre Putin said in his second set of televised comments since the attack.
He insisted that past conditions stood, notably that separatists lay down their weapons. Moscow also rejects any idea of independence for Chechnya, which Russian troops first invaded to crush a separatist movement in December 1994.
Putin links Russia's conflict in Chechnya to the US-led global war on terrorism, which he enthusiastically backed after last year's September 11 attacks on the United States.
Dawn assault
The dramatic end to the siege began in pre-dawn gloom of a cold and rainy Moscow amid confusion. Officials said the guerrillas had killed two male hostages and reporters heard a series of explosions and bursts of gunfire.
Special forces troops, who had been crouching under cover close by, advanced on the building and headed inside. An armoured vehicle moved into place. Dozens more troops then raced across the road toward building.
The group of heavily armed Chechen rebels seized control of the theatre on Wednesday evening. Among the 75 foreigners held were Americans, Britons, Germans and Austrians.
As a deadline of just before dawn passed, crackles of gunfire and explosions were heard. There was no word on their fate.
- Reuters
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