Chechen Rebels Free 7 More in Standoff

Chechen guerrillas who took over a theater here in mid-performance shot a woman to death, authorities said Thursday, increasing fears for the safety of about 700 remaining hostages.

But in a hopeful sign, seven hostages were released early this morning, the Federal Security Service said, bringing the total freed so far to 45. Later, an agency spokesman said the rebels had agreed to free all 75 foreigners held captive.

Embassies were asked to send representatives to meet their citizens, but the hundreds of Russian hostages were not to be freed.

The situation remained tense.

About 50 relatives of the hostages demonstrated against the Chechnya war outside the theater early today after some of the hostages telephoned to warn that the rebels were threatening to blow up the building unless they did so.

With the theater cordoned off at a distance of several hundred yards and a few armored vehicles visible on streets leading to it, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin issued a statement saying that the main aim of security forces should be “to release the hostages and ensure their maximum safety.”

Negotiators spoke with the heavily armed rebels, who seized the hostages Wednesday night and have demanded an end to the Russian government’s war on separatists in the southern republic of Chechnya.

Terrified relatives of the captives gathered in the gymnasium of a nearby technical school. Most grimly watched news reports on television, while some quietly sobbed and others told reporters that the captors’ demands should be granted.

“I don’t understand why this simple, understandable and justifiable demand of the terrorists cannot be met,” said Liana Okhapkina, 41, a doctor whose daughter, Zhenya, 19, is among the hostages.

“This war has been going on for eight years,” she said. “It killed thousands of people and what is the result? I don’t need this war. I don’t know anybody who really needs this war. Maybe those who started it. But their children are not among the hostages, so what do they care?”

U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow told reporters that President Bush spoke with Putin and “expressed our condemnation of the terrorist act that is still unfolding here in Moscow, and he offered any support and assistance that the United States could provide.”

“We call upon the terrorists to release all hostages -- American, Russian and other nationalities -- immediately and without conditions,” Vershbow said.

Three U.S. citizens and a Russian citizen holding U.S. permanent resident status were among the hostages, Vershbow said. British officials reported that a dozen of their citizens were inside.

“I just want to underscore the solidarity of our nation with the Russian people at this difficult time,” Vershbow added. “I don’t think this is in any way going to help the Chechen cause, but only create more outrage toward anyone who tries to use terrorism for political ends.”

Chechens won a degree of autonomy for their republic in the Caucasus region after defeating Russian troops in a 1994-96 war. Russian forces marched back into the republic in 1999 and have battled guerrillas there ever since.

Movsar Barayev, leader of the 30 to 50 guerrillas holding the hostages, rejected the label “terrorist” in an interview with London Sunday Times correspondent Mark Franchetti, who entered the theater Thursday with a Russian negotiating team.

Franchetti told reporters that Barayev had said: “We aren’t terrorists, because terrorists ask for money and planes. All we ask for is to pull out the troops from Chechnya.”

Barayev’s uncle, Arbi, was a warlord who gained notoriety as a kidnapper and trader in Russian captives in Chechnya until he was killed last year.

An Internet site believed linked to the rebels -- www.kav kaz.org -- posted a statement declaring: “The Chechen moujahedeen have taken over a Moscow theater with 1,000 hostages. The Chechen detachment is led by Movsar Barayev .... In addition to the moujahedeen, there are also 40 widows of Chechen fighters. The building has been mined. All the participants in the operations are also wearing explosives....

“Barayev said that those who have attacked Moscow are kamikaze rebels. The only demand is that the war should end and that an immediate withdrawal of occupation troops from Chechnya should begin.... Barayev also said that the Chechen moujahedeen came to Moscow not to survive, but to die.”

Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, a successor of the Soviet-era KGB, said Thursday night that about 700 hostages were still being held, including 30 children and the 75 foreigners.

The hostage-takers released the body of the dead woman Thursday afternoon.

“It is a Russian girl, about 20 years of age,” Ignatchenko said. “Doctors said she died of a fatal gunshot wound into the chest 16 to 18 hours ago.” The woman also had broken fingers on one hand, he said.

Reporters for the Russian television station NTV later accompanied Red Cross doctors into the theater to deliver medicine. They reported that the hostages had been fed and did not seem panicky.

Two women fled the theater early Thursday evening, a Moscow police spokesman said. The hostage-takers fired two rounds from grenade launchers at them as they ran, but missed, he said. At the nearby school gymnasium, relatives of hostages said they understood the two women had jumped out a window.

Okhapkina, the doctor, said her hostage daughter telephoned Thursday afternoon and told her “the terrorists gave them food and water and allowed them to use the toilet, but they could see how the whole place is mined.”

Galina Artyomova, 58, whose daughter-in-law, Anna, 33, was among the hostages, said the younger woman telephoned her Thursday evening and said: “It’s getting worse and worse. Everything is mined here, so these people are really ready to die. I have no doubt about that, nor does anybody else here. If the storming of the place begins, that will be the end of us. We’ll all be dead in no time.”

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko party in parliament, had entered the theater late Thursday evening to begin another round of negotiations with the hostage-takers.

An aide said the party leader was taking proposals to the rebels that he believed could help resolve the situation. Yavlinsky left the building again about midnight and went directly to the nearby security operation headquarters.

It was unclear whether more than one hostage might have died. A man who requested anonymity for himself and his wife, a hostage, said she had telephoned him and said: “I don’t know if I’ll be able to call again, but don’t take everything you hear for granted. Things are much, much worse than you may imagine. They have already killed four people.”

The man said he asked, “Did you see them?” and she replied, “I know.”

Svetlana Baranova, 40, an engineer whose son, Ivan, 18, is a hostage, said hundreds of hostage relatives signed a petition to Putin asking that he end the war in Chechnya as soon as possible.

“We hope that Putin reads it, considers our plight and lets these Chechens go,” Baranova said. “If they don’t want to live with us, why should we force them? After all, it’s a small chunk of rocky land. Who needs it?”

Sergei Strelkov, 25, a taxi driver, said he had been planning to attend the performance of the Russian musical “Nord-Ost” with his wife, Tatyana, 22, but had been delayed by work and couldn’t join her.

“How I wish I could go back to that moment, drop off my client and join her,” he said, holding his head in his hands and trembling. “I’d rather be there with her and face this danger together. The last time I talked to her was last night, when she said what happened, and then she said, ‘Look, there’s something I want to tell you,’ and the phone went dead. What did she want to tell me? Now I know only what I want to tell her. I hope I will.”

Ignatchenko, the FSB spokesman, said that with the batteries of most of the hostages’ mobile phones running low, negotiators had offered to supply chargers to keep them working or other means of communication such as satellite phones, but the hostage-takers refused.

“They are very suspicious, and they are afraid that we will try to plant some bugging devices on them,” he said.

“During our contacts with the terrorists, they at some point opened their jackets and showed explosives tied to their bodies,” Ignatchenko added. “The impression is that all of them have explosives on them.”

Sergei Karaganov, a prominent analyst who heads the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, said in an interview Thursday with Ekho Moskvy radio that Putin might use force against the hostage-takers if he thinks such an action could succeed.

“If it is possible to effectively destroy terrorists with minimum casualties, our leadership, above all President Putin, will have to make a decision,” Karaganov said. “I am not sure that such a possibility exists theoretically in this situation.... Terrorists and bandits may be scattered around the entire premises. I don’t understand how they can be found if shooting begins. But if such a possibility exists, this option may be considered.

“I think that negotiations must be conducted and a way out must be found to minimize casualties,” Karaganov said. “But I am afraid that there is not such a way out. My impression is, and I hope I am wrong, that this is a group of suicide bombers ... who want to repeat the Sept. 11 events on a smaller scale.”

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.