Moscow siege survivors held under armed guard

Police in Russia were today keeping the hundreds of survivors of a siege at a Moscow cinema under virtual arrest today at hospitals throughout the city, fearing that Chechan hostage-takers may be among them.

Many of the survivors have been poisoned by a gas attack used by police to subdue the kidnappers.

Ninety hostages and rebels died in the rescue bid to release some 750 people held in the cinema.

The rebels captured the theatre on Wednesday night in an audacious attempt by the rebels to force Russia to stop the war in Chechnya and withdraw 85,000 troops from their homeland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a brief televised address last night. ‘‘We proved that Russia cannot be forced to its knees.’’

But he apologised to victims of the hostages who were killed.

‘‘We could not save everyone. Forgive us,’’ he said.

‘‘We were able to do the nearly impossible - save the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people,’’

The abrupt and bloody finale came before dawn on Saturday, after the hostages had spent three tense nights in the thrall of some 50 assailants.

The special forces raid began in the dark amid freezing rain after the gunmen killed two hostages.

‘‘About 5.15am there was shooting. There was a real threat. Therefore the operation was undertaken,’’ Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev said. First, gas was released into the building, he said - meant mainly to knock out female assailants who were wired with explosives.

Then the forces moved in. Television footage showed some kicking in glass doors and firing rounds, the report setting off car alarms in the theatre parking lot. The hostages were brought out, some of them in the arms of special forces, most of them loaded unconscious onto city buses.

After several hours of virtual silence, Vasilyev said 67 hostages were killed - all of them adults - but the Health Ministry later said the death toll had risen above 90.

Nine hostages died because of heart problems, shock or lack of medicine, Vasilyev said, but how the others died was not specified by Russian sources.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Vasilyev as saying none of the 67 victims he referred to died from gas poisoning.

Doctors at City Hospital No. 13 said none of the more than 320 freed survivors recovering there Saturday night had gunshot wounds, TVS television reported.

None of the 71 foreigners who were among the hostages was killed, Russian news agencies reported, citing diplomats at foreign missions in Moscow.

But the Dutch Foreign Ministry said early Sunday that a naturalised Dutch citizen, Natalja Zjirov, was among those killed, a victim of the sleeping gas.

Authorities said at least three people died before the special forces assault began: a young woman whose body was brought out Thursday and two people killed Saturday morning.

‘‘They killed two hostages before our eyes, a woman and a man. They shot the man in the eye, there was a lot of blood,’’ the Interfax news agency quoted its reporter Olga Chernyak, who was among the hostages, as saying.

She said she lost consciousness soon afterward, apparently because of the gas. Officials did not say what kind of gas was used, but US Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said ‘‘we were given brief and general information that this was either an incapacitating or calming agent.’’

Despite the toll, Chernyak said the operation was necessary.

‘‘We were all waiting to die. We understood that they would not let us out alive,’’ Interfax quoted her as saying.

Besides 50 rebels the Federal Security Service said were killed at the theatre - several with bullets to the head, apparently as they lay incapacitated from the gas, officials said three other gunmen were captured, and authorities searched the nervous city for accomplices and gunmen who may have escaped.

The well organised attack in Russia’s capital starkly defied the Kremlin’s frequent contention that Chechen rebels are fractured and on the verge of defeat.

A Federal Security Service official said the raiders had foreign links and contacts with unspecified embassies in Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Putin, who has long emphasised that Russia considers its campaign in Chechnya part of the worldwide war against terror, thanked foreign counties for their ‘‘support in the struggle against the common foe. This foe is strong and dangerous, inhumane and cruel. It is international terrorism.’’

Shortly after the storming, officials said some of the estimated 50 gunmen may have fled during the chaos and melted into the enormous city, but Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev told Putin hours later that none of the captors had escaped.

In the same meeting with Putin, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said about 30 accomplices of the gunmen were arrested in the Moscow area, but gave no public details.

Putin also visited survivors in Moscow’s main emergency hospital. Donning a doctor’s white coat, he joked with one young man who was struggling back to consciousness and told the president he wanted to take a shower.

Outside another hospital, dozens of hostage relatives gathered waiting for word or the appearance of a treasured face.

Galina Dolotova said her 32-year-old daughter Olga 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.

Russian authorities said none of the troops who stormed the theatre was killed. Patrushev said one was slightly wounded.

Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya after a devastating 1994-1996 war that left separatists in charge. They returned in 1999 - with Putin taking a tough stance against the rebels - after rebel attacks in a neighbouring region and after apartment-building bombings that killed about 300 people were blamed on the militants.