RUSSIA - Oct. 23 - Chechens Sieze Hundreds In Moscow Theatre.

About 40 heavily-armed Chechens, including 18 women, storm into an evening performance of the cult musical Nord-Ost in a former House of Culture in Moscow's south-eastern district, fire shots into the air and take more than 800 people hostage, demanding an end to the war in the break-away republic of Chechnya. The group, led by Movsar Barayev, threatens to blow up the building unless their demand is fulfilled. During Oct. 24 and 25, about 150 people - including Muslims and children - were allowed to leave. A number of others managed to escape, and some of the hostages used their mobile telephones to contact the authorities. Some shooting was occasionally reported from within the theatre. Pres. Putin, whose period in office has been closely linked with the Chechen crisis, postponed his plans for a trip to Germany, Portugal and Mexico, and held a crisis meeting with security officials. (The capture of the theatre appeared to mark the most high-profile raid by Chechens since the seizure of more than 2,000 hostages in the border town of Kizlyar, in the North Caucasus, in 1996. It also marks a shift in hostilities well outside the boundaries of Chechnya, although the Kremlin claimed that Chechen separatists were behind the apartment explosions in Moscow and other cities that killed 300 people in 1999. The latest crisis comes just over three years after Moscow launched a second war in Chechnya under the command of Putin, then prime minister, who was elected president in March 2000 partly on the back of his pledge to respond toughly to the anarchy in the Chechen Republic.

The authorities have long claimed that what they call the "anti-terrorist campaign" is coming to a conclusion, although dozens of people continue to be killed in the conflict each month. In recent signs of an escalation of the fighting, rebels claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian military helicopter just outside the Chechen capital of Grozny - an attack that killed more than 120 soldiers). Putin stressed his refusal to bow to "provocations" and said the theatre attack had been planned from foreign terrorist centres, drawing a link with the fight against international terrorism. Later, Al Jazeera broadcast a videotape, with Movsar Barayev stating his willingness to die in Moscow alongside "infidels". Separately on Oct. 25, an FSB spokesman claimed that Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen rebel leader and former head of the breakaway republic, was aware of the plans for the siege, although Akhmad Zakayev, a representative of Maskhadov's rebel government, distanced it from the action.

Early in the morning on Oct. 26, the theatre siege came to an end. An FSB spokesman said the rescue operation began when a number of hostages attempted to escape from the theatre, after the hostage takers killed two hostages and wounded two others. The FSB used a special gas and everybody inside the theatre fell asleep, although some gunfire was reported. A few hours later, Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev told reporters outside the theatre: "We succeeded in preventing mass deaths and the collapse of the building which we had been threatened with". All the hostage takers, except two, were killed, and it was reported that the unknown gas caused the death of 67 hostages. In the evening, the figure rose to "more than 90 people". On Oct. 27, it was reported that 117 hostages were killed by the gas.