How a frightened boy brought the drama to an end

A terrified small boy tried to make a dash for freedom, triggering the shooting by Chechen gunmen that provoked the successful assault by élite Russian troops to recapture the theatre where 700 hostages were held. So began the final moments of the Moscow siege, according to hostage accounts yesterday.

Olga Chernyak, a reporter with the news agency Interfax, who was one of the captives, said early on Saturday morning a man covered in blood got into the theatre. The gunmen thought he was a Russian secret agent and started beating him up. This was too much for a boy sitting on one of the red plush chairs at the back of the theatre.

First he threw a bottle at the gunmen and raced down the aisle. "He dashed towards the exit, shouting 'Mummy, I don't know what to do'. They opened fire on him, but missed and hit seated people instead," Ms Chernyak told Russian television from her hospital bed.

"They hit a guy in the eye. There was a lot of blood, bubbling blood. And a girl was hit in the side. Then they told us: 'Don't worry, everything is going to be all right'." Both of the wounded hostages died.

The Chechens, who had already killed one hostage at the start of the siege, had escalated their threats on Friday evening, threatening that they would start massacring hostages at dawn on Saturday if their demands were not met.

Ms Chernyak, who was a regular communicator with the Russian media via her mobile phone throughout the siege, said the guerrillas repeatedly threatened their captives with imminent death, telling them the building was rigged with explosives and nobody would escape. She said the presence of 18 female suicide fighters hovering menacingly among the hundreds of frightened theatre-goers added to the atmosphere of fear.

The accidental shooting at 3.30am appears to have triggered the Russian decision to attack. With two full days to follow the movements of the Chechen fighters through secretly-installed video cameras, the special forces could identify the hostage-takers' weaknesses.

They appear to have known where each Chechen gunman was sitting, as well as the position of the women suicide bombers. At no time, it seems, did the Russians seriously intend to negotiate.

Two hours later General Vladimir Pronichev, deputy head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and its top counter-terrorism officer, ordered members of the élite Alpha special forces to begin pumping gas through the air vents of the theatre to incapacitate the hostage-takers.

Hostages say they smelt nothing but suddenly had a strange taste in their mouths before they lost consciousness. This allowed soldiers to race into the building to kill the women suicide bombers in the gang, the so-called "black widows" in veils who had strapped explosives to their bodies, before they could blow themselves up.

Russian television pictures showed the dead Chechen women slumped in their seats, apparently shot at point-blank range while unconscious. None of them had managed to detonate the explosives before being killed.

The leader of the terror gang, Mosvar Barayev, appears to have fatally misunderstood the likely Russian response to his raid. In 1995, at one of the lowest points in Chechen resistance during the first war in the region, Chechen fortunes were revived by a raid on a hospital in the town of Budyonovsk. More than 1,500 hostages were captured and 129 killed. An attack by Alpha troops was thrown back and the rebels negotiated their way to freedom.

But the difference between Budyonovsk and the Melnikova Street theatre siege was that President Vladimir Putin was unlikely to compromise. In 1995 the Alpha troops were thrown into battle without time for reconnaissance, while in Moscow they had two days to make their plans.

In military terms, the success of the attack was extraordinary. Only a single Russian soldier was wounded and only one hostage was killed by a bullet, doctors said. Within a few minutes, 34 Chechen gunmen were dead. This makes it all the more embarrassing for the Russian authorities that 115 of the hostages died because of the gas.

Two members of the assault team interviewed but not identified last night by Russian TVS television said they attacked from three different points: The main entrance, the basement and through a hole they had made in the wall.

Fighting their way along a corridor, they met resistance and threw a grenade. They entered the store room that Barayev was using as his headquarters and killed him in an exchange of fire. They said they also made heavy use of stun grenades.

Heads will probably now roll in the FSB for the security failures that allowed the Chechens to mount such an operation in the Russian capital.

But President Putin's reputation will be enhanced by the outcome of the siege. Despite the heavy casualties among the hostages, the losses are less than if the Chechens had exploded the bombs. Mr Putin's resolution will also be seen as a sharp contrast to President Boris Yeltsin's vacillation and incompetence in 1995.

DIARY OF A BLOODY WEEKEND

Friday, 7pm: The rebels ignore Russia's offer guaranteeing their lives in exchange for the release of the hostages and threaten to start killing people at dawn on Saturday. Nineteen hostages have been released.

Friday, 10.30pm: 18 female suicide bombers disperse among the hostages and tell them they are looking forward to blowing themselves up and taking others with them.

Saturday, 5.15am: A loud explosion and gunshots are heard inside the theatre, perhaps sparked by a small boy who hurls a bottle at captors. Two hostages are believed killed. Russian authorities say executions have begun and negotiations break down. A group of hostages tries to escape from the building.

Saturday, 5.30am: An unknown gas is released into the theatre through air vents by anti-terrorist forces. Commandos emerge through drains and execute slumped female suicide bombers with shots to their temples. A gun battle ensues.

Saturday, 6.30am: Commandos blast a hole in the theatre wall, break through the front entrance and swarm in. Russian authorities say 34 gunmen are killed, including the rebel commander, Movsar Barayev. Others believed to have escaped are hunted.

Saturday, 7.20am: Security forces have complete control of the building. 750 hostages rescued, many unconscious and suffering symptoms of poisoning. The Deputy Interior Minister, Vladimir Vasilyev, says 67 hostages are dead -- nine because of heart problems, shock or lack of medicine. How the others died is not specified.

Saturday, noon: President Vladimir Putin visits victims in hospital and asks forgiveness from families of the dead, blaming the crisis on international terrorism.

Saturday, 7.20pm: Health Ministry says at least 90 hostages have died.

Sunday, 5am: Dutch Foreign Ministry says a naturalised Dutch citizen, Natalja Zjirov, one of the theatre-goers, died from inhaling the toxic gas. One Kazakh national is also confirmed dead. One of two Americans remains unaccounted for.

Sunday, 2pm: Health Ministry says the number of dead hostages has risen to 118, later revised to 117. Relatives are denied information about their loved ones. 646 of the 750 rescued hostages are still in hospital, 150 in intensive care, 45 in a critical condition.

Sunday, 7.50pm: Moscow's medical chief, Andrei Seltsovsky, says 115 hostages died from the effects of the gas, and two died of gunshot wounds. Doctors still do not know the name of the gas.