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Chechen terrorists holding some 700 hostages in a Moscow theater have threatened to start killing hostages at dawn on Saturday if their demands are not met, spokesman for the hostage release headquarters Sergei Ignatchenko said on Friday.
Ignatchenko said the possibility of this threat being carried out is being discussed, and if it is then Russian law enforcement agencies will be adopting appropriate measures.
A total of 15 hostages have been so far released on Friday, including eight children. But an agreement reached with the Chechens on the release of all 75 foreign hostages has yet to not be fulfilled.
The hostage-takers on Friday allowed the delivery of food and drinking water for the hostages after a three-hour negotiation with Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who has written extensively about Chechnya for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Leonid Roshal, director of the Catastrophe Medicine Center, on Friday afternoon.
The hostage crisis is in its third day since hostage-takers, numbering from 40 to 50, including masked women strapped with explosives, burst into a Moscow theater on Wednesday evening and demanded an end to the Chechen war.
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Chief Vladimir Patrushev said on Friday that if the terrorists release the hostages, their lives will be safe.
He made the remarks after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
"We are holding and will continue to hold negotiations. We hopethey will bring positive results as regards the release of the hostages," Patrushev said.
Patrushev said that the FSB is maintaining contacts with its foreign colleagues. About 60 officials from foreign special services and law enforcement agencies are currently in Moscow, he added.
Some 700 people are still being held hostage in a Moscow theater on Dubvovka Street by Chechen rebels, who are demanding withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.
(Xinhua News Agency October 26 ,2002)
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