Chechen rebels holding more than 700 people hostage in a Moscow theatre have shot a woman dead who tried to escape, the authorities said this afternoon.
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"She was killed yesterday as she tried to escape during the takoever," Mr Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the FSB security service, told NTV television.
"She received serious chest wounds," Mr Igantchenko had earlier told reporters that the woman, agedabout 20, had also suffered wounds to her hands as she had tried to cover herself when she was shot.
Meanwhile, two young Russian women managed to escape this evening, a security official said.
The two 18-year-olds climbed out of a window and one of them suffered light wounds after the rebels threw grenades at them, he said.
Elsewhere, a woman clad in an Islamic chador vowed today to "kill hundreds of infidels" in footage aired by Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite TV which said she was one of the Chechen rebels in Moscow's hostage crisis.
"We have chosen to die in Moscow and we will kill hundreds of infidels," said the woman covered in black from head to toe, flanked by several other women.
"We have chosen to struggle to regain freedom for the Chechen people ... and it doesn't matter to us where we die," she said.
Earlier, three powerful explosions have also been heard near the theatre in Moscow. The sound of the powerful blasts appeared to come from inside the theatre, said an onlooker.
Window panes were shattered in nearby buildings, the reports said, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
The hostage-takers had threatened to shoot their hostages if Russia did not order an end to the war in Chechnya.
Earlier, the rebels said they would not release any more of the hundreds of hostages they are holding, a Russian negotiator was quoted as saying.
The guerrillas released about 150 hostages soon after taking over the theatre on last night and freed a handful more this morning.
The International Red Cross had this morning opened talks with the Chechen guerrillas, who are threatening to blow up the building and all inside if security forces try to storm it. Some hostages, mostly children, were released overnight.
The Red Cross hopes to secure the release at least of foreigners and children among the hundreds of theatre-goers being held hostage.
The hostage takers are thought to be holding some 30 foreigners prisoner. The armed group, estimated at about 40 in number, including masked women strapped with explosives, burst into the theatre last night firing shots in the air and shouting "Stop the war in Chechnya". They demanded Russia pull its troops out of their Muslim homeland.
Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin has called off a trip to Germany and Portugal. He said the Chechen action was planned abroad and led by "the same criminals" acting against Russian forces in Chechnya.
Mr Putin said this afternoon he would not give in to the rebel demands.
"We will not give in to provocations," Mr Putin said following a meeting with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, as quoted by the Russian news agencies.
A Chechen news website carried what it said was a statement by the attackers' commander, Mr Movsar Barayev. "There's more than a thousand people here. No one will get out of here alive and they'll die with us if there's any attempt to storm the building," the website quoted him saying.
Agencies