Russians remain tight-lipped on killer gas

Top Moscow doctors said that the 116 hostages who died after the Russian raid were victims of the gas, a compound that remained secret even to medical workers fighting to save people weakened after 58 hours in the thrall of their Chechen rebel captors.

Another 405 of the freed captives remained in hospital today, while 239 have been released, the Moscow Health Department said.

Amid criticism over the number of hostages killed and the way they died. Russian authorities said 50 hostage-takers were killed when Russian forces released gas into the Moscow theatre before moving in firing weapons.

In televised comments two days after the end of the 58 hour ordeal, Putin said he will give the military broader power to strike against suspected terrorists and their sponsors because of what he called the growing threat they could use powerful weapons - and suggested Russia would not refrain from launching strikes abroad if threatened.

‘‘Russia will not ... give in to any blackmail. International terrorism is becoming more impudent, acting more cruelly. Here and there around the world threats from terrorists of the use of means comparable to weapons of mass destruction are heard,’’ Putin said at a meeting with government ministers.

‘‘If anyone even tries to use such means in relation to our country, Russia will answer with measures adequate to the threat to the Russian Federation. In all places where the terrorists, the organisers of these crimes or their ideological or financial sponsors are located,’’ he said. ’’I emphasise wherever they may be.’’

Under a cold grey sky, white, red and blue Russian flags flew from buildings in the working-class neighbourhood around the theatre just south-east of central Moscow, as hundreds of mourners streamed in to lay flowers, candles and teddy-bears along a driveway leading to the building - or just stand and stare from behind metal barricades.

Pensioner Lyudmila Yemelyanova lamented the deaths but said, ‘‘There was no other way.’’

‘‘If the explosives inside had gone off, not only the theatre but all the neighbouring buildings would have been destroyed,’’ she said, echoing officials who said the gas was necessary to knock out assailants armed with powerful explosives, in some cases strapped to the bodies of women who said their husbands were killed by Russian forces in Chechnya.

‘‘In general, the special forces acted properly, but for relatives and friends of the victims, of course it’s a tragedy,’’ said business student Konstantin Lavrov, 19, who left flowers at the site.

Lavrov was angry that such a large group of attackers could make their way into Moscow and seize hundreds of hostages watching a musical.

‘‘We should take more preventative measures, so things like this will never happen again,’’ he said.

Putin, who gained popularity with pledges to restore order and his tough stance on Chechnya - but has been unable to crush resistance in the mostly Muslim region or quash the chaos and crime that plagues the country - suggested the hostage-taking raid in the capital was a sign of failings from the leadership down to those in charge of keeping order.

‘‘The tragic events in Moscow are over, but many problems remain. We are paying a heavy price for the weakness of the state and for inconsistent actions,’’ Putin said.

To many Russians, it seemed shortly after the pre-dawn raid that deaths among the hostages were minimal: Officials boasted of a successful operation but said it was too early to tell how many were killed, and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov later said 30 might have died.

But that afternoon, authorities announced that 67 hostages were killed, and by evening the number had risen above 90, as desperate relatives waited outside hospitals for word about their family members who had been held. On Sunday, authorities said the toll was 118.

The special forces who spread the gas before storming into the theatre did not tell city health authorities exactly what the substance was, said chief Moscow doctor Andrei Seltsovsky.

That apparently left doctors and emergency workers struggling in confusion to minister to the more than 750 hostages who were delivered to city hospitals, mostly unconscious.

Seltsovsky said medical personnel were familiar with the general category of the gas, which causes people to lose consciousness and can be used to anaesthetise surgical patients, but had not been told its name.

The gas can paralyse breathing, cardiac and liver function and blood circulation, the doctors said. The effects were worsened by the extreme conditions in which the hostages had been confined - next to no movement, lack of water, food and sleep, severe psychological stress - and by chronic medical problems some suffered.

‘‘In standard situations, the compound that was used on people does not act as aggressively as it turned out to in this case,’’ Seltsovsky said.

Anguished relatives crowded the gates of city hospitals, begging for news of their kin. Others scoured the city morgues.

Even diplomats had trouble finding information about the estimated 70 foreign citizens who were among the hostages. US consular officials searched the city’s hospitals for one of two American citizens known to have been hostages.

Two foreign women, one Dutch and one Austrian, were known to have died, and officials in Kazakhstan said a 13-year-old girl from their country had died - one of three children known to have perished.

In addition to the 116 who died from of the effects of the gas, authorities said one woman was shot and killed in the early hours of the crisis and a man was killed by a gunshot to the head early on Saturday. Shortly after the raid, officials had said they were provoked into starting the operation to free the hostages when the rebels fatally shot two people.

The attackers burst into the theatre on Wednesday night during a performance of the popular musical Nord-Ost, some with explosives strapped to their bodies. They mined the theatre and threatened to blow it up unless Putin withdrew Russian troops from Chechnya.

Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya after a devastating 1994-1996 war that left separatists in charge. In fall 1999, Putin sent troops back in after rebels attacked a neighbouring region and after apartment-building bombings that killed about 300 people were blamed on the militants.

In 1995 and 1996, rebels seized hundreds of hostages in two raids in near Chechnya that were on a similar scale to the theatre assault but far from Russia’s capital. Dozens of people died in both cases, many killed when Russian forces attacked the assailants.

Moscow officials said today that victims would receive financial compensation - 100,000 roubles (about £2,000) for relatives of the dead and half that amount for hostages who survived, the Interfax news agency reported. The city will pay for funerals, it said.

Schools in Moscow were open today - starting the day with a moment of silence - but many children’s activities were cancelled and security within the capital and on the roads leading in remained tight, authorities said.

Police arrested a Chechnya resident after finding an explosive substance on his person and in his car, along with extremist Muslim literature, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.