Special forces stormed the theater where Chechen gunmen were holding hundreds of hostages before dawn yesterday, killing their leader and dozens of other gunmen and freeing most of the captives.
The raid was accompanied by the release of sleeping gas inside the theater and many of the freed hostages who were taken to hospitals in city buses were unconscious or having clear difficulty walking.
None of the foreigners who were among the approximately 700 hostages was killed during the crisis, which began Wednesday night, Russian news agencies reported, citing diplomats at foreign missions in Moscow.
Shortly after the storming, officials said some of the estimated 50 gunmen were believed to have fled during the chaos and melted into the enormous Russian capital, but Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin hours later that none of the captors had escaped.
He said 32 of the gunmen were killed and an unspecified number seized. In the same meeting with Putin, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said about 30 accomplices of the gunmen had been arrested in the Moscow area, but details were not immediately available.
At least three people were killed by the gunmen inside the theater. A young woman was killed in the early hours of the crisis, although it was not clear if she was a hostage or a distraught relative who had rushed into the building. Early yesterday, officials said the captors killed two hostages and wounded two others.
The hostage-takers had earlier threatened to begin killing their captives at dawn yesterday. After the two deaths, officials reached the captors by phone but then quickly said their negotiations had failed, and the raid began.
Russian television footage from inside the theater showed the camouflage-clad body of the gunmen's leader Movsar Barayev, lying on his back amid blood and broken glass, a cognac bottle placed at one of his lifeless hands.
In the theater hall, the corpses of several of the female captors, clad in black robes and head coverings, sprawled in the red plush seats, their heads thrown back or on their folded hands, as if asleep.
Canisters loaded with explosives and metal fragments were attached to waists of some of the captors, who had threatened to blow up the theater if their demand for Russian troops' withdrawal from the rebel republic of Chechnya was not met.
Outside city Hospital 13, dozens of hostage relatives gathered waiting for word or the appearance of a treasured face.
Hostage Olga Dolotova embraced her mother Galina when she walked out, then hunched and pulled her jacket hood over head to shield herself from journalists.
Galina Dolotova said her 32-year-old daughter appeared to have been one of the hostages least affected by the gas, but even at that "she was in terrible shape" when she was brought in.
How the gas was spread through the building was not immediately known, but workers had been seen digging around sewers and steam pipes near the theater in the first day of the crisis.
There were no immediate reports of any deaths among the forces that stormed the building, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing a representative of the so-called "operative staff" set up to coordinate Russia's response to the crisis.
The assault on the building came on the fourth day of the crisis, after a night of heavy explosions and repeated bursts of gunfire.Sergei Ignatchenko, spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said the operation to free the hostages began when the Chechen rebels began executing the captives.
President Vladimir Putin was informed and was following developments, Russian news agencies reported. The presidential press service released a photo of him covering his face upon receiving the news in his Kremlin office, just 4km from the theater.
Late Friday, a mediator who met with the gunmen said they promised to release the hostages if Putin declared an end to the war in Chechnya and began withdrawing troops.
The new demands were brought out of the theater just before midnight Friday by Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who is respected by Chechens for her reporting on the war and who was called in by the rebels to mediate.
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."
Politkovskaya listed rebel demands, and foremost among them were Putin's declaration of an end to the war and the start of a Russian withdrawal from one region anywhere in Chechnya to show good will. If the withdrawal was verified, the rebels promised to free the hostages.
She 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 the human rights situation in Chechnya.
The demand was the first time that the gunmen revealed specific conditions for freeing the hostages, who included Americans, Britons, Dutch, Australians, Canadians and Germans.
The Kremlin made only one public counteroffer, when Patrushev said that the hostage-takers' lives would be guaranteed if they freed their captives.
Daria Morgunova, a spokeswoman for the musical, told reporters that an actor who was among the hostages called her to say that the captors had threatened Friday to begin killing hostages the next morning.
The gunmen released 19 hostages Friday, including eight children aged between 6 and 12. 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 freed earlier in the day, and four citizens of Azerbaijan were released after dark, Russian officials said.
Politkovskaya, a reporter for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, arranged earlier for the hostage-takers to accept deliveries of water and warm meals for the captives.
She was one of several influential figures who entered the theater late Friday in efforts to mediate with the captors. They also included former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Ruslan Aushev, the former president of Ingushetia, a region bordering Chechnya.
The hostage-takers have derided the Kremlin for refraining from sending high-level officials to negotiate.
Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev was quoted by news agencies as saying unsuccessful attempts had been made to contact Aslan Maskhadov, a rebel leader who was president of Chechnya between Russian troops' withdrawal in 1996 and resumption of the war three years later."The leader of the terrorist act is Maskhadov. It was organized with his participation."
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