Some 400 people, including 200 schoolchildren, have been taken
hostage after a group of armed men seized a school in Russia's
North Ossetia region Wednesday morning, Itar-Tass news agency
reported.
Ismel Shaov, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesman, told
Interfax that the gunmen have contacted authorities. Itar-Tass
reported that the gunmen, numbering 25 to 30, demanded the Russian
authorities free jailed fighters.
The armed men have seized the school in the town of Beslan at
around 9:30 a.m. Moscow time (0530 GMT).
Earlier reports said the terrorists had been engaged in a gun
battle with police.
Vladimir Yakovlev, Russian presidential envoy to the South
Federal District, has confirmed the school seizure.
"Police and interior troop units are arriving at the school at the
moment. A shootout is in progress in the area," Yakovlev was quoted
by Interfax as saying.
A source in the Interior Ministry's central branch for the South
Federal District told Interfax that one of the terrorists was
killed in the shootout.
The hostages are reportedly being held in the school's gym, the
source said.
North Ossetia is located in southern Russia, bordering the
rebellious republic of Chechnya. The school's students are aged
between seven and 17 and they were attending the first day of their
new academic year.
Russia has suffered a series of terrorist attacks over the past
week.
An explosion near a metro station Tuesday in northeast Moscow
killed 10 people and injured 37 others.
The explosion came after Sunday's presidential election in
Russia's Chechen republic, in which Kremlin-backed Alu Alkhanov won
a landslide victory to replace pro-Moscow Akhmad Kadyrov who was
killed in a terrorist bomb blast on May 9.
Just five days before the election, two Russian passenger planes
crashed almost simultaneously, killing all the 90 people aboard.
The incidents aroused fears that terrorist attacks were behind the
tragedies.
Traces of explosives were found aboard both planes and
investigators suspected that two female Chechen passengers -- each
aboard one aircraft -- might have brought down the planes.
A group called the "Islambouli Brigades" have claimed
responsibility for the twin crashes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that an al-Qaida
link to the crashes of two Russian airliners last week confirms a
connection between Chechen rebels and international terrorism.
Chechnya, a war-torn republic in Russia's Northern Caucasus, won
de-facto independence in 1996 after the pullout of Russian troops.
Federal soldiers returned to the lawless republic in September
1999. Since then, a guerrilla war between Chechen rebels and
federal troops has persisted, occasionally spilling into
neighboring regions.
(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2004)
