700 held in hostage drama

UP to 30 armed men and women, apparently Chechens and wearing masks, took hostage up to 700 people in a Moscow theatre last night and threatened to blow it up if police stormed the building, witnesses and police said.

Officials refused to say who was behind the attack, but witness accounts pointed to an attack by Chechen separatist guerrillas.

If the armed gang proves to be Chechen, the Moscow hostage-taking incident would be the most audacious such attack since the first Chechen war of 1994 to 1996. A teenager released by the gang told Russian television that the armed gang wanted “the war to be stopped”.