A gang of heavily armed men and women seized a school in southern Russia yesterday, and threatened to kill hundreds of hostages inside unless the Kremlin withdrew its troops from Chechnya and released suspected separatist rebels from prison, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow.
Between 15 and 30 people with guns and explosives burst into the school in the republic of North Ossetia, which borders Chechnya, and seized at least 300 children, parents and teachers as doors opened on the first day back after the summer holidays.
"They have said that for every fighter killed they will kill 50 children and for every fighter wounded - 20," said regional Interior Minister Mr Kazbek Dzantiyev outside the school in the town of Beslan.
"That's why Interior Ministry troops are not taking any action at the moment," he said, as sporadic gunfire crackled from the direction of the school.
Tears poured down the cheeks of one mother, Vera, as she said: "Every gunshot I hear is like a shot into my heart." The raid drew international condemnation just a day after a suspected Chechen woman blew herself up outside a Moscow metro station, killing nine people and injuring dozens, and eight days after two airliners were blown out of the sky over southern Russia, killing all 90 people on board. Chechen women were also being blamed for that attack.
Hundreds of distraught relatives looked on as soldiers and special forces troops massed close to the school, raising fears of the kind of raid that has claimed many civilian lives in similar crises in Russia.
Russian television said children had been placed near the windows of the school to dissuade the security forces from storming it.
At least eight people, including policemen and passers-by, were shot dead when the attackers poured out of a truck and into the school building on the first morning of the new term - a day that is usually marked by festivities at Russian schools.
"I was standing near the gates and music was playing when I saw three armed people running with guns. At first I though it was a joke, then they fired in the air and we fled," one teenager, Zarubek Tsumartov, told Russian television.
About 50 children managed to escape the school after hiding when the siege began, and the gunmen later set about 15 others free, as estimates varied over how many people were actually inside the school.
"According to updated information, there are not 150 people but at least 300 inside the besieged school," Mr Dzantiyev said last night, adding that negotiations were under way with the assailants to allow food and drinks to be taken to the school, and over demands made on a videotape that was passed to authorities earlier in the day.
They asked for talks with the leaders of North Ossetia and neighbouring Ingushetia, where suspected Chechen rebels launched a lightning strike on the local capital in June, killing dozens of police and soldiers. "They demand the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya, the cessation of military action there, and the release of people who took part in terrorist activity in Ingushetia," said Mr Aslanbek Aslakhanov, an adviser to Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin.
Mr Putin cut short his holiday on the Black Sea to oversee the crisis, which comes after he hailed Sunday's presidential election in Chechnya as the latest step towards peace in a region wracked by two wars in a decade between Moscow and separatist rebels.
His Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, was one of several officials to link the wave of violence and Chechnya's guerrillas to international terror groups like al-Qaeda.
"War has effectively been declared on us, one in which the enemy is invisible and there is no frontline," Mr Ivanov said. "The whole world is confronted by this menace . . . and we will do everything we can to fight it." Russia increased security at schools yesterday, after doing the same at airports, train stations and nuclear facilities, in fear of further rebel attacks.
More than 100 hostages died in the southern town of Budyonnovsk in 1995 after commandos stormed a rebel-held hospital, and 129 others perished in October 2002 when gas was pumped into a Moscow theatre to immobilise guerrillas holed up inside.