this is fucked up.........

[dnice35]

MOSCOW — Chechen rebels holding about 600 hostages in a Moscow theater have threatened to begin killing them at dawn Saturday if their demands are not met, a spokeswoman for the theater said Friday.

Daria Morganova said the threat was reported by one of the actors being held hostage.

The announcement came about an hour after the head of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, said the approximately 50 rebels' lives would be guaranteed if they freed all the hostages, including 30 children and 75 foreigners.

It was not immediately clear if the rebels' threat was connected to Patrushev's offer.

Throughout the crisis, nearing its third day, the gunmen have demanded Russian troops withdraw from the rebel republic of Chechnya and have said they are ready to die -- and take the hostages with them -- if that demand is not met.

The rebels freed eight children before Patrushev made Russia's first known offer since the hostage siege began. Even as the release of the eight children brought hope, negotiations broke down over the promised release of the 75 foreign captives, including three Americans.

Patrushev made the offer after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Russian news agencies reported.

"We are conducting talks and will conduct talks, hoping that they will bring positive results in freeing the hostages," Patrushev was quoted as saying by the Interfax agency.

Details of Patrushev's statement were not immediately available and it was not clear if the guarantee had been transmitted to the approximately 50 armed Chechen rebels.

The rebels, including women who claim to be widows of ethnic insurgents, have demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from the Caucasus province of Chechnya. Earlier, a Web site linked to the rebels said they would blow up the theater if the Russians did not withdraw in seven days.

The children, dressed in winter coats and one of them clutching a stuffed bear toy with aviator goggles, appeared to be in good health as they were accompanied by Red Cross representatives.

A Swiss citizens was among the group of children, ages 6-12, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Officials at the Swiss Embassy in Moscow could not be reached for comment.

"The children were released without any conditions," said Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, who served as a contact with representatives of foreign governments.

NTV television quoted one girl as saying she was fine but she was very worried about her mother, who remained inside the theater.

So far 54 hostages have been released, and about 100 people were believed to have escaped during the confusing first minutes of the hostage-taking. On Thursday, two women raced to freedom under fire from a grenade launcher. Their escape came after medics dragged the body of a young woman from the theater. She was shot in the chest and was the only known fatality of the siege. She reportedly was killed as she tried to move around inside the theater after the attack began.

Several dozen cast members of the show that was in progress when the rebels stormed the facility Wednesday night gathered near the theater Friday afternoon. With tears running down their faces, they sang songs from the musical and read an appeal to Putin to end the crisis peacefully.

Hopes for a major break in the crisis rose Friday morning with a report that the estimated 75 foreign hostages would be released, but officials said negotiations broke down.

"We're very concerned that no other hostages have been freed and that the terrorists are not prepared to discuss the release of other hostages," U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said minutes after the children were freed.

The reason for the breakdown was not specified. Alexander Zharkov, head of the Russian Red Cross, said earlier that copies of the passports of some hostages were given to the gunmen.

The hostages include Americans, Britons, Dutch, Australians, Austrians and Germans, and embassies were requested to send representatives to the scene to meet their freed citizens, Federal Security Service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said.

Seven Russian men and women released earlier Friday were receiving medical care, but Ignatchenko declined to say why they were chosen. Officials expressed hopes that the approximately 30 children among the captives would be freed Friday as well.

Russian NTV crews were allowed inside with a doctor Friday and videotape was broadcast showing three male captors — in camouflage and carrying Kalashnikov-style rifles — were seen sitting in what appeared to be a kitchen.

Two wore black masks. The television identified a third man, who wore no mask, as group leader Movsar Barayev, a nephew of rebel warlord Arbi Barayev, who reportedly died last year.

Two women in the group of rebels wore robes with Arabic script on the head coverings. Only their eyes were exposed, and they cradled pistols against their chests.

The women had what looked to be explosives wrapped in tape around their waists. The packages were wired to a small button the women carried in their hands.

The captors made no comments in the broadcast footage, which also later included a brief clip of six women hostages guarded by a female attacker.

Dr. Leonid Roshal, head of the Medical Center for Catastrophes who accompanied the television crew, said the hostages were trying to stay calm. A few were hysterical. He treated the hostages for various minor ailments — including eye trouble, coughs and high blood pressure — and left behind medications. He left the theater early Friday.

"In general, the situation is calm," he said.

"We are safe and sound, it's warm and we have water and there's nothing else we need in a situation like this," hostage Anna Adrianova told a radio station early Friday.

She said the hostages were pleading with Russian leaders to end the crisis without force.

Another hostage, however, said the situation inside the theater was tense and conditions were worsening. The captives had not received food or water and were using the theater's orchestra pit as a toilet.

Yelena Malyonkina, spokeswoman for the "Nord-Ost" musical being staged in the theater, said captive production official Anatoly Glazychev told her a bomb was placed in the center of the theater and the stage and aisles were mined.

"Both the terrorists and hostages are nervous," Malyonkina said.

Ignatchenko said some hostages were sympathizing with their captors' and calling relatives by cell phones to ask them to stage anti-war demonstrations in Moscow.

About 100 protesters arrived as dawn broke Friday, carrying banners and chanting anti-war slogans, pushing against metal police barriers. Several said they were responding to requests to protest in calls from relatives.

Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasiliyev warned that unauthorized mass demonstrations would not be tolerated.

"You may regard this as a warning to the hotheads who intend to stir up passions. If anything of this kind happens, we will act toughly," he said.

Putin said the audacious raid was planned by terrorists based outside Russia, and the Qatar-based satellite television channel Al-Jazeera broadcast statements allegedly made by some hostage-takers.

"I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living," a black-clad male said in remarks believed to have been recorded Wednesday. "Each one of us is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of God and the independence of Chechnya."

The hostage-taking occurred less than three miles from the Kremlin and further undermined claims by Putin and other Russian officials that the situation is under control in Chechnya, where Russian soldiers suffer casualties daily in skirmishes or mine explosions.

In Chechnya Friday, residents rallied to protest the hostage-taking and demanded the rebels release their captives. Three Russian servicemen were killed and one was wounded in a clash between rebels and paramilitary police in the village of Duba-Yurt, an official in the region's Moscow-backed administration said Friday.

Over the past decade, Chechens or their sympathizers have been involved in a number of bold, often bloody hostage-taking situations in southern Russian provinces, especially in Dagestan. Nearly 200 hundred hostages and rescuers died in two of operations.

[sassa]

It's fucked up, but not worse than what the Russians have done to these people. Over a million Chechens died during Stalin's rule. I have met old Chechen people in Russia who have had to go to radiation/concentration camps in Siberia and ended up with deformed limbs, and when they had children, they turned out to be deformed too (huge heads, missing fingers, parts of brain gone,etc). What they are doing in that theatre is still not right though, BUT is understandable, considering the shit the Russians are putting these people through just because they don't want to be Russian citizens no longer.

[dnice35]

Originally posted by sassa

It's fucked up, but not worse than what the Russians have done to these people. Over a million Chechens died during Stalin's rule. I have met old Chechen people in Russia who have had to go to radiation/concentration camps in Siberia and ended up with deformed limbs, and when they had children, they turned out to be deformed too (huge heads, missing fingers, parts of brain gone,etc). What they are doing in that theatre is still not right though, BUT is understandable, considering the shit the Russians are putting these people through just because they don't want to be Russian citizens no longer.

Its not always about what "they" want sass..... Remember no nation wants to lose territory, though it does not justify what the Rusians did to these people. Yet if they go ahead and murder those innocent civilians. They are just gonna make a bad situation worse. If they go ahead with this, They are gonna end up looking like barbarians and its gonna give the Rusians a reason to continue fucking these people over.

[sassa]

Originally posted by dnice35

Its not always about what "they" want sass..... Remember no nation wants to lose territory, though it does not justify what the Rusians did to these people. Yet if they go ahead and murder those innocent civilians. They are just gonna make a bad situation worse. If they go ahead with this, They are gonna end up looking like barbarians and its gonna give the Rusians a reason to continue fucking these people over.

i know, and i agree...but this is what desperation does to people.

[dnice35]

Originally posted by sassa

i know, and i agree...but this is what desperation does to people.

:confused:

Sorry I'm just not use to hearing you say.... "I agree"