Rebecca Santana, Voice of America, October 26, 2002

The hostage crisis in which a group of Chechen rebels held hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theater is over. Officials say 750 hostages have been freed but 67 hostages have been killed in the operation.

Russian forces brought an end to a hostage crisis that riveted the country, when they stormed the building where the hostages were being held, killed 34 of the hostage-takers and freed the people inside.

Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev said Russian security services managed to save 750 people.

Mr. Vasilyev said the Russian security forces made the right decision and that up to 1,000 people could have been killed if the situation had worsened, including the hostages inside the theater and those trying to save them.

Initial reports suggested some of the hostage-takers escaped the building and were trying to hide in the crowd outside the theater and elsewhere in Moscow. But the head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Vladimir Patrushev said those reports were not true.

Russian officials said Saturday the rebels began to kill hostages in the early morning. Many of the hostages began to flee the building and security forces decided to storm the theater.

Initial reports suggest the security forces used sleeping gas to help subdue the hostage-takers before entering the building. Many of the hostages were carried out unconscious and taken to hospitals, some apparently suffering from the effects of the gas.

Diplomats in Moscow say they were told none of the estimated 75 foreigners among the hostages had been killed.

Officials say they are investigating how the group of Chechen rebels was able to carry out the sophisticated hostage-taking operation, which occurred just a few kilometers from the Kremlin.

Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said the Chechen rebels inside the theater had accomplices on the outside.

Mr. Gryzlov said 30 people who were trying to help the rebels have been detained. He did not give further details.

Russian television showed pictures of the interior of the theater. The hall had been cleared of former hostages, but many of the Chechen rebels lay dead on the floor.

In some areas, there was blood on the ground and the floor was littered with juice packets and candy wrappers, some of the only food the hostages were able to eat during the long crisis. Some of the rebels had what were described as explosives wrapped around their bodies and a team of sappers went inside the building to clear it of mines.

The hostage crisis started Wednesday evening when Chechen rebels stormed the building and demanded an end to the war in Chechnya.