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AFP [ THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2002 04:44:38 AM ]

MOSCOW: The deputy who represents Chechnya in the state Duma lower house of Parliament spoke by telephone early on Thursday with the head of an armed Chechen group holding hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre to try and secure their release.

The lawmaker Aslanbek Aslakhanov did not manage to reach any agreement with the Chechen rebel leader Movsar Barayev, the Interfax news agency reported, quoting police sources.

Aslakhanov earlier tried to enter the theatre in southern Moscow where between 600 and 1,000 hostages are being held, accompanied by fellow-Chechen Ruslan Khasbulatov, a former speaker of Parliament.

Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky, quoted by TVS television, said that both men had experience of negotiating in hostage dramas.

Some 40 to 50 armed Chechens took theatre-goers hostage late Wednesday during a performance of a musical comedy called "Nord-Ost," one of the city's most popular shows.

Demanding an end to the war in the breakaway Russian province of Chechnya, they threatened to blow up the building if security forces tried to storm it. Aslakhanov urged the hostage-takers to let their hostages go.

"I want to appeal to those who have taken these hostages, that they realise what they have done, that it is going to harm the Chechens themselves," he said in comments broadcast on Channel One television.

"The heaviest consequences will be for the Chechens," said the lawmaker, warning of a backlash against Moscow's ethnic Chechen diaspora.

"Khasbulatov and I are ready to enter into contact with them to talk about the situation. I, as a deputy from Chechnya, will do all I can to end the war in Chechnya through political means," he added.

Chechen religious leader, Mufti Akhmad Shamayev, who also came to the hostage scene, called on the rebels to release the women and children and "accept dialogue."

"I very much regret these events and I present my excuses, as Chechen mufti, to all those affected by the hostage-taking. These terrorists have no nation, they have nothing," he told Channel One

La de da. So there is no responsibility for this mass murder should it happen except those that committed it? Sounds like the terrorists they attacked America -- they had no nation either. Its not good enough. Someone taught them hate -- that they can kill innocents for political gain.

Depending on the end of this the nonjihadi chechens are going to sweat real hard for a while or even longer.

Glad there's at least someone a chechen cleric to talk some sense into the jihadis. And jihadettes. But they've already killed enough to show they don't care.

And I doubt Putin can allow this to continue for long.
It's in the Capital City and can't be allowed to continue for over 24 hours. Or they go in early at dawn, like Yeltsin did when he moved on the reactionary Parliament in 93.