Gunmen hold hundreds hostage at Moscow theatre

About 40 Chechen guerillas armed with guns, grenades and explosives held hundreds of Moscow theatre-goers hostage late last night, and threatened to blow up the theatre if police tried to storm it.

Some hostages who were freed said the group, which included several women with some wearing masks and strapped with explosives, burst into the theatre in southeast Moscow firing shots into the ceiling and shouting "Stop the war in Chechnya".

Last night's spectacular hostage-seizure was a stinging humiliation for President Vladimir Putin, whose decision as prime minister in October 1999 to order Russian troops back into Chechnya helped catapult the political novice into the Kremlin.

His firm handling of Chechnya backed by tough, public fighting-talk, made him the country's most trusted politician.

Moscow city police chief spokesman Valery Gribakin told the state-run Rossiya television channel that according to released hostages the gang was demanding that authorities "resolve the situation in the Chechen republic."

"They have grenades and they have guns," Gribakin said. "We are trying to establish contact with them."

As hundreds of heavily-armed special forces, backed with armoured personnel carriers, surrounded the building, two senior Chechen politicians entered the building hoping to open negotiations with the gang.

Several shooting incidents were reported in different parts of the five-storey theatre after the gang burst in during the second act of the musical "North-East".

But there was no immediate word of casualties in the theatre, a bland modern building known as the former House of Culture in Melnikov Street.

The group released up to 20 children immediately from among the audience as well as some Muslims. Police said 400-700 people remained hostage while some 150 had been released.

President Putin himself called in his senior security chiefs and his Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov for crisis talks in the Kremlin.

Russia has been fighting on and off for more than eight years to quell a separatist rebellion in the North Caucasus territory that is still costing lives daily among Russian troops and civilians.

The drama erupted as Putin was preparing to leave for Germany and Portugal. That was to have been followed by a visit to Mexico where he was due to meet US President George W. Bush for talks on the Iraqi crisis and other issues. Diplomats said there was a possibility Putin might postpone his trip given the crisis.

The two Chechen negotiators who went into the theatre were Aslanbek Aslakhanov, the deputy who represents Chechnya in the State Duma lower house of parliament, and Ruslan Khasbulatov, a former speaker of parliament.

Police said Aslakhanov had established an initial contact with the gang but that the communication had been broken off soon thereafter for unknown reasons.

One witness said the guerrillas had strapped explosives to the theatre's internal supporting columns to prepare to carry out their threat to blow up the building if stormed by police.

An anguished hostage, speaking by mobile telephone from inside the theatre, pleaded live on NTV television for the security forces not to storm the building.

"Please do not start storming. There are a lot of explosives. Don't open fire on them. I am very scared, I ask you please do not start attacking", said Tatyana Solnyshkina.

The Moscow hostage-taking incident would be the most audacious such attack carried out by Chechens since the first Chechen war of 1994 to 1996.

In 1995 some 120 people were killed after rebels seized a hospital in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk. In 1996 a Chechen group took more than 2,000 people hostage in a raid on the Dagestani town of Kizlyar.

The man who led the group into the theatre first fired a burst of bullets into the ceiling.

"He told all the actors to sit down on the front rows. Then women and men came in with masks," said a teenager who was released, Denis Afanasyev.

"Some women were strapped with explosives and they said they would blow up the whole building in 10 minutes if they (police) started to storm the building," Afanasyev said.

A Reuters reporter close to the theatre said he had heard four to five gunshots near the building. Other reports said the shots came from inside the theatre.

Afanasyev said that the initial assault by the hostage-takers was followed by sporadic shooting in a corner of the main hall, on one of the balconies and behind the stage.

Police cleared nearby buildings, as a security cordon was thrown around the area. Around 50 police were on the scene, some marshalling a large crowd that gathered behind the police cordon.

A man close to tears told a Reuters correspondent on the spot: "My friend's wife is trapped inside. She said there are about 700 people trapped inside."

A distraught woman in her 60s said her daughter and two grand-daughters were inside the theatre on a school trip.

"My daughter managed to speak to me on the phone, literally three words. Then they took their phones away."