Chechen guerrillas holding some 700 hostages in a Moscow theater have threatened to begin killing them at dawn today if their demands are not met, a spokeswoman for the theater said yesterday.
Daria Morganova said that she was informed of the threat by one of the actors being held hostage.
The announcement came about an hour after the head of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, said the approximately 50 rebel's lives would be guaranteed if they released all the hostages.
"We are holding and will keep holding talks ... If all hostages are released, the terrorists will be guaranteed their lives," Patrushev said after meeting President Vladimir Putin.
It was not immediately clear if the gunmen's threat was connected to Patrushev's statement.
A Chechen "suicide squad" freed eight children yesterday after releasing seven other hostages, but is still keeping hundreds of other people hostage in a theatre rigged with explosives, demanding Russia to pull its troops out of their homeland.
The guerrillas have threatened to blow up the building if security forces storm it.
The children, aged between six and 12, were led to safety by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross and a Red Cross official said they were in good health.
Some 40 heavily armed Chechen guerrillas seized the theatre in southeast Moscow on Wednesday night.
Diplomats waited for the rebels to honor a pledge to free about 75 foreigners among their hostages yesterday, including Australians, Austrians, Britons, Germans and three Americans.
The siege, which drew international condemnation, dealt a blow to Putin, whose meteoric rise to power was built largely on his decision to send troops back into Chechnya in October 1999.
Russian agencies said Putin was seeking advice from Patrushev yesterday on how Western special forces handled such crises.
Against a background of reports of anti-Chechen incidents in Russia, Putin appealed to his people not to take revenge attacks on Chechen civilians, thousands of whom live across the country.
"Don't allow yourself to be pushed into illegal action. We have no right to allow events to take a negative turn," he said in televised comments.
Conditions have been growing grimmer by the hour inside the theatre where the hostages use the orchestra pit as a toilet and supplies of food and medicines are low.
"Many are suffering from stress, of course they are. Can anyone imagine living under those conditions?" Dr Leonid Roshal, the chairman of the International Committee for Pediatric Disasters who spent some six hours in the theatre, said.
A woman being held inside the theatre said the hostages' nerves were at breaking point.
"It feels like something bad is hanging in the air," Anna Andrianova told Ekho Moskvy radio. "People are starting feeling very bad."
The rebels, who say they are prepared to die, killed a woman who tried to escape during the initial assault on Wednesday.
NTV television broadcast film showing the man behind the attack, Movsar Barayev -- a relative of Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev, who Russia says it has killed.
Some guerrillas accompanying Barayev, including two black-clad hooded women, were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols.
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