Heavily armed Russian troops triumphed over Chechen hostage-taking thugs in a dramatic dawn raid today, freeing hundreds of captives held over three nights in a Moscow theater.
About three dozen of the estimated 50 kidnappers died, including the group leader, Movsar Barayev. An unknown number of hostages also was killed.
But Russian forces quickly won control of the booby-trapped theater in a feverish battle during which they used some type of sleeping gas, state-run television said.
The Interfax news agency said several people, apparently hostage-takers, were brought out from the building with their hands bound.
Many of the freed hostages were unconscious or unable to walk, hospitals said. TV footage showed the theater strewn with bodies, some of them with their heads down as if they had passed out.
Some kidnappers apparently escaped, but officials vowed to hunt them down.
By storming the building, special forces believed they avoided a far greater bloodbath that would have resulted in “the death of most of the hostages, including children,” said Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev.
The raid was launched after rebels began executing their captives, said a spokesman for the Federal Security Service.
Hours earlier, officials said, two hostages were killed and two wounded, as explosions rocked the theater.
A rebel spokesman told the BBC they also shot a man who may have been related to one of the hostages after he broke into the theater.
The shooting came shortly after a grenade lobbed by rebels exploded near Russian special forces as they encroached on a vacant area near the theater, the spokesman said. The dramatic raid came just before sunrise – the deadline by which the gunmen threatened to begin killing their 600 terrified captives unless Russia declared an end to the war in Chechnya and began withdrawing troops.
The chilling demand was announced last night by Anna Politkovskaya, a veteran Russian journalist respected by the Islamic separatists.
Asked if the captors seemed to be preparing to start killing the hostages, Politkovskaya said they told her: “We’re going to wait only a little while.”
She spent five hours talking with the rebels, and said the captors 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 human-rights in Chechnya.
“We were constantly told that if they were not provided with a concrete plan to withdraw Russian troops from Chechnya, they threatened to take the most serious measures at 5, 6 or 7 in the morning,” Politkovskaya said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “must say himself that he is ending the war, they need his word. This is the first thing,” she said.
“The second thing is that from one of the regions in Chechnya, the troops must be withdrawn as an example of what is to follow.”
If the withdrawal was verified, the rebels promised to free the hostages, Politkovskaya said.
“At the moment when Lord Judd says, ‘Yes, it has happened,’ at this moment they will free the hostages,” she said.
The demand was the first time the gunmen revealed specific conditions for freeing the hostages, believed to include Americans, Britons, Dutch, Australians, Canadians, Austrians and Germans as well as Russians.
Earlier yesterday, the rebels, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, freed 19 hostages, including eight children.
Dressed in winter coats – and one clutching a teddy bear with aviator goggles – the children appeared healthy as they left the building accompanied by Red Cross workers in the afternoon.
Seven adults were also freed, and four citizens of Azerbaijan were released last night, officials said.
But the rebels failed to deliver on an earlier promise to free the 75 foreigners – including three Americans – who were being held.
A total of 58 people had been released and about 100 escaped during the takeover Wednesday night.
Before the new demands were announced, Putin went on national television to say he was open to talks with the rebels.
But the Russian president insisted that past conditions stood, notably that separatists lay down their weapons.
Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev said after meeting with Putin that the hostage-takers’ lives would be guaranteed if they freed their captives.
Putin said that “the preservation of the lives of the people who remain in the theater building” was his overriding concern.
Moscow rejects independence for Chechnya.
From the start, the rebels – who had mined the theater with explosives and even strapped them to hostages – said they were ready to die and take their captives with them.
With Post Wire Services