CHECHEN "kamikaze" rebels held some 2,000 hostages in a southern Russian town last night and threatened to kill them if their demands were not met. But there was a first sign of a possible compromise.
Itar Tass news agency said the "Lone Wolf" group of fighters was seeking a way out of the town of Kizlyar in the Dagestan region, near the border with Chechnya, asking the authorities to provide buses to take 300 people across the border into Chechnya.
After shooting dead two civilians, they threatened to start further executions and turn the town into a "burning hell" if their demands for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya were not met.
About 4,000 Russian troops, including anti terrorist units, surrounded the hospital where the hostages were herded by 600 or so rebels in a dawn raid on Tuesday that sent alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin.
The rebels last night promised to tree women and old people if Moscow agreed to some of their conditions, Tass said.
These included a corridor for them to leave Kizlyar and a meeting between the Chechen separatist leader, Mr Dzhokhar Dudayev, and Russian officials both of which Moscow was unlike to accept. The rebels also wanted to meet foreign journalists. Tass said.
Russia sent troops into the breakaway region just over a year ago to crush its bid for independence. launched in 1991 by Mr Dudayev. The Kizlyar attack was led by Mr Salman Raduyev, said to be Mr Dudayev's son in law.
Police at a checkpoint some four km outside Kizlyar, a town of about 40,000 people. said shooting had continued for 12 hours until 5 p.m. (2 p.m. Irish time). They said between three and 10 police officers, including the deputy regional commander, had been killed.
Tass quoted the Dagestani Interior Ministry as saying five police and five civilians had been killed.
Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio station said the rebels had dropped earlier demands and were seeking vehicles with a view to fleeing the town.
The radio report, monitored by the BBC, quoted a senior Dagestan official as saying regional authorities had agreed to the request for transport. No independent confirmation of the report was immediately available.
"The Wolves have come to you, said Mr Raduyev in an earlier radio message to the Russian authorities. "Withdraw troops from Chechnya or civilians will be shot."
In the capital, President Yeltsin demanded to know why his ministers had not learned from a similar emergency in the town of Budyennovsk last June, and ordered the Security Minister, Mr Mikhail Barsukov, to take "the most resolute measures" to end the crisis.
An enraged Mr Yeltsin accused Russian border guards of "sleeping" by allowing the fighters to cross from Chechnya into Dagestan, a multi ethnic region on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Last June hawk's such as the Defence Minister, Mr Pave Grachev, who advocated a tough response to the hostage taking, were overruled and the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, was allowed to negotiate an end to the nightmare in Budyennovsk.
True, about 100 civilians had already lost their lives, but hundreds of others were released unhurt after Moscow promised to open peace talks with Grozny and allowed the gunmen safe passage back to their hideout in the mountains of Chechnya.
This time Mr Yeltsin, who, if his health permits, hopes to run for a second term as president this year, is likely to heed the hawks, at least in the short term, although the unpopular Gen Grachev may find himself out of a job when the emergency is over.
The peace talks set up by the prime minister in June produced an agreement that the Chechens would disarm if the Russians withdrew their troops. But Moscow did not keep its promises and even pushed through elections for a Chechen leader in December, despite the rebels' insistence on independence.
Anxious women hostages pleaded tearfully for an end to their ordeal yesterday as the masked Chechen gunmen at the hospital swore they had nothing to lose and would fight to the end.
"We just want this to end peacefully," one woman told a Russian television crew, who filmed dozens of men, women and children some of them still attached to intravenous drips being held captive in Kizlyar.