Chechen rebels kill one captive

MOSCOW -- Chechen rebels holding hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater shot and killed one captive and said they were ready to die for their cause, warning Thursday that thousands more of their comrades were "keen on dying."\nA news agency reported, meanwhile, that the rebels had fired two rocket-propelled grenade rounds out of the theater Thursday night. It was not immediately clear where the grenades landed or if there were injuries.\nIn a broadcast monitored in Cairo, Egypt, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel broadcast a videotaped statement by one of the estimated 40 hostage-takers.\n"I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living," a black-clad male hostage-taker said in the broadcast. "Each one of us is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of God and the independence of Chechnya."\n"Even if we are killed, thousands of brothers and sisters will come after us, ready to sacrifice themselves," declared a female hostage-taker, covered in a black robe except for her eyes.\nAl-Jazeera did not explain how it obtained the pictures, and it was not clear if it had been taken in the theater or before the raid began. Police and soldiers have pushed journalists hundreds of yards back from the theater.\nAl-Jazeera is known for having broadcast statements by Osama bin Laden and other members of his al Qaeda terrorist network. Russian and U.S. officials also have said some al Qaeda fighters may be in Chechnya. Chechens also were among fighters ousted from Afghanistan late last year when the ruling Taliban were overthrown.\nThe rebels, both men and women, stormed the theater at 9:05 p.m. Wednesday as an audience of about 700 people watched a popular musical.\nA blanket-shrouded body, identified only as a woman, was wheeled out of the theater Thursday afternoon, apparently killed in the early hours of the hostage drama. Sergei Ignachenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said the woman appeared to be in her 20s and had been shot in the chest and her fingers were broken.\nMore than 100 women and children had been released since the gunmen in camouflage stormed into the theater, Moscow police spokesman Valery Gribakin said. The freed hostages were sobbing and shaking as they emerged from the theater which holds 1,163 people.\nAnd even as the Chechen rebels were threatening to kill their hostages, intermediaries entered the building earlier Thursday bearing a white flag and won the release of five more captives.\nSharpshooters perched on rooftops around the theater less than three miles from the Kremlin.\nDistraught relatives tried to reach family members inside the theater. Alina Vlasova, 24, said her sister Marina was so upset when she called from inside the theater that she could barely speak. "They are standing over us with automatic rifles and are getting angrier," Alina said her sister told her.\nA pro-rebel Web site, www.kavkaz.org, said Thursday that Russia had seven days to begin withdrawing from Chechnya or the theater would be blown up.\nThe Web site said the attackers were led by Movsar Barayev, the nephew of warlord Arbi Barayev, who reportedly died last year. The site said some of the women hostage-takers were the widows of Chechen rebels killed fighting the Russians.\nPresident Vladimir Putin canceled his trip this week to the APEC summit in Mexico as the secessionist war that has bedeviled Russia for a decade came terrifyingly home to the nation's capital.\nMeeting with security officials Thursday, Putin said "freeing the hostages with the maximum assurance of their safety," was the main goal. He said the raid was planned "in one of the foreign terrorist centers" but did not name it.