| MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Chechen "suicide squad"
held hundreds of people hostage
for a second night Thursday in a Moscow theater rigged with explosives,
after killing one woman who tried to escape.
 The
brazen guerrilla attack in the Russian capital, carried out by
up to 40 heavily-armed men and women seeking a Russian troop withdrawal
from their homeland, defied the world community and dealt a humiliating
blow to the Kremlin.
The guerrillas, armed with guns, grenades and explosives, held
Russian
security forces at bay by threatening to blow up the theater and
their 700
captives if an attempt was made to storm it.
Two women managed to escape during the tense stand-off which was
marked by
sporadic negotiations between Russian officials and the Chechens.
One was
wounded by her Chechen captors as she fled, news agencies quoted
officials
as saying.
 The
rebels, calling themselves a suicide squad, made threats on a
Chechen Web site and through hostages to blow up the theater or
begin killing captives unless their demands were met.
Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera showed a tape of
what it said
was one of the black-clad male rebels saying: "Each of us
is ready to
sacrifice for God and the independence of Chechnya. We
seek death more than you seek life."
Russian heart specialist Maria Shkolnikova, who emerged as an
unofficial spokeswoman for the hostages, told Reuters by mobile
phone the rebels had wired the theater hall with explosives --
in aisles, seats and even some of the hostages themselves.
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
 President
Vladimir Putin, wrestling with his biggest challenge in two and
a half years in power, scrapped plans to meet President Bush at
the weekend in Mexico and canceled trips to Germany and Portugal
to deal with the drama on his doorstep.
Looking grim-faced and drained, he told the nation the rebel operation
was a
"terrorist act planned abroad" but he said the top priority
was to save the
lives of the hostages.
World leaders rallied behind the beleaguered Kremlin leader and
called for
united action against acts of terror.
 Bush
and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called him to offer support
and solidarity while the U.N. Security Council, acting at Russia's
request, unanimously condemned the "heinous" guerrilla attack
and demanded the hostages' release.
Britain said it was sending a team of counter-terrorist experts
to help
secure the safe release of the hostages.
Police said the guerrillas shot a woman dead as she tried to
escape when
they seized control of the theater some four km (three miles)
southeast of
the Kremlin Wednesday night.
"She was killed yesterday as she tried to escape during
the takeover," FSB
security service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said.
FSB officials said 75 foreigners, including Australians, Austrians,
Britons,
Germans and Americans, were among the roughly 700 men, women and
children
being held in conditions that grew grimmer by the hour. There
were diabetics
among those held and some people with heart conditions,
officials said.
BREAKING POINT
"Nerves are at breaking point. The situation in the hall
has become more
aggressive. You can sense it in people's voices," Shkolnikova
told Ekho
Moskvy Thursday night.
 On
the outside, Muscovites were trying to contact their kin inside
the hall by mobile phone. But phone batteries were running down
and communications becoming more infrequent.
Contacts with the hostage-takers appeared erratic at best.
The Chechen news Web site www.kavkaz.org reported what it said
was a
statement by the attackers' commander, Movsar Barayev. "There's
more than a
thousand people here. No one will get out of here alive and they'll
die with
us if there's any attempt to storm the building," the Web
site quoted him
saying.
He called on Putin to stop the war and pull his troops out of
Chechnya if he
wanted to save the hostages' lives.
The rebels freed around 150 hostages Wednesday, including up
to 20 children
and some Muslims, and a few more Thursday, among them three children
and a
Briton in his 50s or 60s.
But Iosif Kobzon, a member of parliament and entertainer who
was taking part
in negotiations, told Interfax news agency: "When I asked
them to free
others, they said they had already let the three smallest ones
go and would
release no one else."
Another negotiator, liberal deputy Irina Khakamada, outlined
the rebels'
demands to a Putin aide after meeting the guerrillas, but no details
were so
far made public. Interfax said Grigory Yavlinsky, a prominent
politician who
heads the liberal Yabloko bloc, was expected to join negotiations.
FIGHTING SINCE 1994
The hostage-taking is the most audacious Chechen attack since
the first
Chechen war of 1994 to 1996.
Russia has fought on and off since 1994 to quell the revolt in
Chechnya,
which costs lives daily among troops and civilians.
Putin's decision as a politically inexperienced prime minister
in October
1999 to order troops back into Chechnya helped to catapult him
into the
Kremlin. His firm handling and public fighting talk made him Russia's
most
trusted politician.
Western accusations of human rights abuses against civilians
in devastated
Chechnya have died down since Putin threw Moscow's backing behind
the
U.S.-led global war on terrorism following last year's September
11 attacks
in the United States.
Russia has drawn attention to Arab fighters in Chechnya and accuses
the
rebels of links to radical Islamist groups like the Afghan Taliban
and al
Qaeda, whom Washington blames for the September 11 attacks. But
privately,
Western diplomats play down any Chechen involvement by al Qaeda.
'DON'T OPEN FIRE'
An armored personnel carrier was parked in a lane near the theater,
along
with six trucks full of Interior Ministry troops, all in helmets
and armed.
Some wore masks.
Hostage Tatyana Solnyshkina, speaking by mobile telephone, addressed
security forces live on NTV television: "There are a lot
of explosives.
Don't open fire on them. I am very scared, I ask you please do
not start
attacking."
Gennady Gutkov, a member of parliament's security committee,
said: "The
building will not be stormed at the initiative of the Russian
side if the
terrorists do not undertake actions to kill large numbers of hostages."
Crowds of relatives waited outside the theater for news.
"It's a nightmare," said Yekaterina Ostankhova, a woman
in her 70s whose
19-year-old grandson, a theater decorator, was inside. "What's
next? This is
the capital of all places. I've come here and I've heard nothing.
I'm just
standing here.
"I would be willing to go inside, even if they kill me."
See also:
Act
of Terror in Moscow
The
Moscow Times. October 24, 2002. Armed Chechens Seize Moscow Theater
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