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MOSCOW (AP) -- Armed men who claimed to be Chechens seized a crowded Moscow theater Wednesday and took the audience captive, the Federal Security Service said. Gunshots rang out during the rare hostage-taking in the Russian capital, and police and security forces went on high alert.
A woman who made her way out of the theater said in an interview on Russia's NTV television that men wearing camouflage went on stage, fired in the air and said: "Don't you understand what's going on? We are Chechens. We are not hiding it."
ITAR-Tass reported the men were laying mines inside the theater. The report was based on a spectator who called the police emergency number, but it could not be verified.
TV6 television news quoted theater-goers as saying the attackers said they had mines on their bodies and would blow themselves up if Russian security forces tried to storm the building.
In an interview with The Echo of Moscow radio station, a boy who was freed said the men were from the Caucasus region, spoke in one of the languages of southern Russia and demanded an end to Russia's war against Chechnya. The boy did not give his name.
Over the past decade Chechens or their sympathizers have been involved in a number of hostage-taking situations in southern Russian provinces, especially in Dagestan.
Russian forces left Chechnya in 1996 after a disastrous two-year war but returned in 1999 after rebels raided a neighboring region and Russian authorities blamed rebels for a series of apartment bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people.
Russia media reported about 700 people were inside the theater. The report could not be immediately confirmed. An Associated Press reporter saw two ambulances, but it was unclear what connection they had with events in the theater.
The theater, a former Soviet-era House of Culture that belonged to a ball-bearing plant, was staging a performance of the musical "Nord-Ost," one of Moscow's most popular productions.
The Interfax news agency said one of its reporters was inside the theater at the time of the raid. She told Interfax by telephone that the armed men fired into the air and would not let the audience leave.
Interfax said its reporter believed there were about 20 men in the group, and quoted unidentified law enforcement sources as saying the same. Interfax said some children had been allowed to leave the theater as well as Muslims. The reports could not be verified.
Police units and an Alpha special forces unit went to the scene and sealed off the area in the freezing, wet weather. The Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet KGB, and the Interior Ministry put plan "Thunderstorm" into effect, which required all officers to report to their units.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was immediately told of the hostage taking, Interfax reported. Mosow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov went to the theater.
Located in southeastern Moscow in a working class neighborhood, the musical is based on Veniamin Kaverin's novel "Two Captains." The romantic novel recounts the story of two students and their different destinies during the Soviet times. The theater's producer, Alexander Tsekalo, said on Russian television that the theater could hold 1,163 people.
According to the theater's Web site, more than 350,000 people have seen the production since it opened.