Gunmen take 400 hostages at Russian school
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-09-01 15:39

Some 400 people, including 200 schoolchildren, have been taken hostage after a group of armed men seized a school in Russia 's North Ossetia region Wednesday morning, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Ismel Shaov, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesman, has told Interfax that the gunmen, bearing guns and wrapped in explosive belts, have contacted authorities and said they would put forward some demands in the near future.

The armed men have seized the school in the town of Beslan at around 9:30a.m. Moscow time (0530 GMT). 

Earlier reports said the terrorists had been engaged in a gun battle with police, but it is not clear now how many people are in the school .

Vladimir Yakovlev, Russian presidential envoy to the South Federal District, has confirmed the seizure.

"Police and interior troop units are arriving at the school at the moment. a shootout is in progress in the area," Yakovlev was quoted by Interfax as saying.

A source in the Interior Ministry's central branch for the South Federal District told Interfax that one of the terrorists was killed in the shootout.

The hostages are reportedly being held in the school's gym, the source said.

North Ossetia is located in southern Russia, bordering the rebellious republic of Chechnya. The school's students are aged between seven and 17 and they were attending the first day of their new academic year.

Russia has suffered a series of terrorist attacks over the past week.

A explosion near a metro station Tuesday in northeast Moscow killed 10 people and injured 37 others.

The explosion came after Sunday's presidential election in Russia's Chechen republic, in which Kremlin-backed Alu Alkhanov won a landslide victory to replace pro-Moscow Akhmad Kadyrov who was killed in a terrorist bomb blast on May 9.

Just days before the election, two Russian passenger planes crashed almost simultaneously, killing all the 90 people aboard and raising suspect that terrorist attacks were behind the tragedies.

Traces of explosives were found aboard both planes and investigators suspected that two female Chechen passengers -- each aboard one aircraft -- might have brought down the planes.

A group called the "Islambouli Brigades" have claimed responsibility for the twin crashes.

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