Explosion Heard From Moscow Theater
Explosion, Gunfire Heard From Moscow
Theater Where 600 Hostages Being Held
by Chechen Rebels
The Associated Press
M O S C O W, Oct. 25 — Chechen rebels
threatened to begin killing their 600 hostages in a
Moscow theater at dawn Saturday, but later
promised to free the captives if Russian President
Vladimir Putin declared an end to the war in
Chechnya and began withdrawing troops.
A few hours after the demands became known, an
explosion and gunshots were heard from the theater
early Saturday but an AP photographer with a view
of the building's entrance saw no signs of a blast.
There was no official comment, and earlier most
journalists were moved away from the theater.
The new demands were brought out of the theater
just before midnight Friday by Anna Politkovskaya,
a Russian journalist who is respected by Chechens for her reporting on the
war. She was called in by the rebels to mediate.
After five hours of talks, she quoted the rebels as saying, "'We're going to
wait only a little while.'"
Politkovskaya listed rebel demands, foremost among them were Putin's
declaration of an end to the war and the start of a Russian withdrawal from
one region anywhere in Chechnya to show good will. If verified, the rebels
promised to free the hostages.
She said the rebels agreed to her suggestion that verification be done by Lord
Judd, a member of the Council of Europe who has made many trips to
investigate the human rights situation in Chechnya.
The new demand was the first time that the gunmen revealed specific
conditions for freeing the hostages. Earlier they demanded flatly that Russia
end the war in Chechnya.
Earlier Friday, the heavily armed rebels, some with explosives strapped to
their bodies, freed 19 hostages including eight children. A total of 58 people
have been released and about 100 escaped in the confusion during the
takeover.
Early Saturday, two ambulances drove to the theater and were seen taking
two people out of the theater, but their condition wasn't known and there was
no immediate official comment.
Their was no immediate response from the Kremlin to the latest rebel
demands. Officials already were scrambling to frame a response that would
avoid bloodshed as the hostage crisis moved into its third day. The standoff
began Wednesday night when about 50 Chechen rebels, including women
who said they were war widows, stormed the theater.
After a meeting with Putin, Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev
promised the hostage-takers would not be killed if they freed their captives.
From the start the rebels have said they are ready to die and take the
hostages with them. Putin said "the preservation of the lives of the people who
remain in the theater building" was his overriding concern and the Kremlin
was "open for any contacts."
Azerbaijan television broadcast an audiotape Friday of what it said was an
interview with a rebel.
"We know they (the Russians) will storm the building all the same. We are
waiting for it and we are ready for it. If the storming takes place, we'll
explode the hall and nothing will be left of it," the hostage-taker, who wasn't
named, told the private Azerbaijani News Service.
"We must fulfill the will of Allah. This plan has been worked out long before.
We haven't yet begun our activities," the hostage-taker said in heavily
accented Russian.
Several influential figures were sent into the building including former Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, who represents
Chechnya in the Russian parliament and is despised by rebels as a tool of the
Kremlin, and Ruslan Aushev, former president of neighboring Ingushetia.
Primakov, a Mideast specialist, later left without comment and went to meet
Putin. Aushev emerged and said there was a risk the rebels might take
"extreme measures" and would only negotiate with a presidential
representative. It was not clear if Aslakhanov remained behind.
Aside from Patrushev's brief statement, the Kremlin has kept its strategy
under wraps. In the past, Putin has rejected negotiations with the rebels unless
the talks focused on their disarmament and abandonment of the drive for
Chechen independence.
The U.S. Embassy's security chief the top U.S. security officer posted in
Moscow has joined Russians in a 24-hour command center near the Moscow
theater. The move implements a promise President Bush made by telephone
to Putin offering support and assistance.
While releasing 19 hostages Friday including four from mainly Muslim
Azerbaijan and raising hopes for a bloodless outcome, the rebels failed to
deliver on an earlier promise to free the 75 foreigners including three
Americans, Britons, Dutch, Australians, Canadians, Austrians and Germans.
Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev said the Kremlin had failed to
reach Aslan Maskhadov, a rebel leader who was president of Chechnya for
the three years between the first and current Russian military occupations of
the region.
"The leader of the terrorist act is Maskhadov. It was organized with his
participation," Vasilyev said in a television interview. Other state-run
networks carried videotape apparently designed to link Maskhadov and the
hostage crisis.
The tapes showed Maskhadov saying rebels had shifted from guerrilla
warfare to an "offensive" strategy. "I am certain that in the final stage we will
carry out a still more unique action, like the jihad, and with this operation we
will liberate our land from the Russian aggressors."
Hostages gave varying accounts of conditions in the theater.
"We are safe and sound, it's warm and we have water and there's nothing else
we need in a situation like this," captive Anna Adrianova told a radio
interviewer early Friday, but she later said conditions had deteriorated.
Another hostage said the situation was tense and the captives had not
received food or water and were using the orchestra pit as a toilet.
Yelena Malyonkina, a spokeswoman for the Nord-Ost musical that was
being staged in the theater, said hostage production official Anatoly Glazychev
told her a bomb was placed in the center of the theater and all the aisles and
stage were mined.
About 80 demonstrators outside the theater carried banners and chanted
anti-war slogans. Several said they were responding to requests from relatives
who were among the hostages.
Alexander Petrov, a demonstrator with friends in the theater, said he had not
opposed the Chechen war, but now "what way out is there?"
Dozens of Nord-Ost cast members showed up later, crying as they sang
tunes from the musical in a gesture of support and concern for those inside.
Deputy Media Minister Mikhail Seslavinsky said the ministry ordered a halt to
broadcasts by the Moskoviya television station over "flagrant violations" of
the law, but later allowed the station back on the air after it promised to abide
by laws on the media and terrorism.
Other Russian television stations reduced coverage from the full-time, live
broadcasts of the first day. The state television channel RTR interspersed
news reports with screenings of patriotic, Soviet-era movies.
Also Friday, officials identified the body of a woman who was shot and killed
inside the theater and was the only known fatality. Olga Romanova lived in
the theater neighborhood, but it was unclear why she was killed.
The hostage-taking, occurring just 3 miles from the Kremlin, undermines
claims by Putin and other Russian officials that the situation in Chechnya is
under control. Russian soldiers there suffer casualties daily in small skirmishes
and mine explosions.
Over the past decade, Chechens or their sympathizers have been involved in
a number of bold, often bloody hostage-taking situations in southern Russian
provinces. More than 170 hostages and rescuers were killed in just two of
them.
photo credit and caption:
A soldier climbs atop of an armored personnel carrier, which blocks a street
near the theater, which was seized by armed men, in Moscow, early
Saturday, Oct. 26, 2002. Gunmen holding hundreds of hostages in a
Moscow theater to press their demand that Russian forces withdraw from
Chechnya threatened to begin killing their captives Saturday at sunrise, while
the Kremlin scrambled Friday for a strategy that would avert bloodshed.
(AP Photo/ Misha Japaridze)
