A heavily armed gang seized up to 400 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya yesterday and threatened to shoot dead 50 children for any one of their comrades killed, a senior local official said.
Itar-Tass news agency said negotiations had begun with the gang of up to 17 men and women who stormed into the secondary school in North Ossetia province during a morning ceremony marking the first day of the new school year.
The assault in the town of Beslan bore the signs of a Chechen rebel operation and was the latest in a recent spate of deadly attacks in Russia which have killed more than 100. But Chechen separatists said they had nothing to do with it.
President Vladimir Putin, facing a major challenge to his security policies, broke off his seaside holiday and rushed to Moscow. But he made no public statements.
As darkness fell, there were no signs of an end to the siege of the two-storey brick building, surrounded by hundreds of troops. Armoured vehicles stood nearby. There were no details on the negotiations, but Tass said the attackers had rejected offers to deliver food and water for the hostages. Most of those held were pupils aged seven to 17.
The attackers had earlier threatened to kill children if their lives were at risk.
"They have said that for every fighter wiped out they will kill 50 children and for every fighter wounded - 20," regional Interior Minister Kazbek Dzantiyev told reporters in Beslan.
North Ossetia lies to the west of the seething Chechnya region where Russian forces have been trying to subdue separatists for a decade.
Mr Putin, whose hardline tactics over separatists helped propel him to power in 2000, has said nothing in public about either the school attack or a bomb explosion at a Moscow underground station on Tuesday evening which killed at least nine people.
Chechen rebels said the Kremlin's policy of resorting to force to tackle separatism was ultimately to blame.
"There is no excuse to these inhumane actions, as there is no excuse for 42,000 Chechen schoolchildren killed by the Russian military under orders from the Kremlin and personally (Mr) Putin," said a statement posted on the rebel web site www.kavkazcenter.com.
The gang, some strapped with explosives and reported to have mined the school grounds, set free 15 children soon after launching the assault, Itar-Tass news agency said. Nearly 50 children escaped in the initial confusion.
At least eight civilians were killed - seven dying of wounds in hospital, news agencies quoted officials as saying.
Witnesses said sporadic gunfire resounded throughout the day. There was at least one loud bang from inside the school.
"Every gunshot I hear is like a shot into my heart," said one woman, Vera, tears pouring down her cheeks. Her child was among the hostages.
The exact number of hostages remained unclear, but local police eventually put the number at between 300 and 400. Tass said 132 children were among them.
In a surprise move, Russia called for a UN Security Council meeting on "terrorist acts" in the country.
Moscow has for years rejected any outside role and criticism of its own role in Chechnya, insisting it was a domestic affair.
But Russian officials have recently been pointing more to foreign involvement in the attacks, possibly linked to al Qaeda.
Tuesday's explosion was set off by a female suicide bomber outside an underground station, killing nine and injuring 51.
A week earlier, two passenger planes were blown up apparently by suicide bombers, killing 90 people. Officials say they were almost certainly linked to Chechen rebels.
Mr Putin has shown no sign of buckling to pressure. Previous hostage-takings involving Chechen rebels demanding a pullout of Russian troops from their region have ended with huge loss of life.
When separatists seized 700 spectators at a Moscow theatre in 2002, 129 hostages and 41 guerillas were killed when Russian troops stormed the building using poisonous gas.
In 1995, Chechen separatists took hundreds of hostages in a hospital in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk. More than 100 died during the assault and a botched Russian commando raid.
The recent attacks occurred days after last Sunday's Chechen presidential election, easily won by the Kremlin's candidate.
The school attackers demand a meeting with top regional officials to discuss demands for the release of fighters seized in neighbouring Ingushetia in June during a rebel raid there.