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The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya.〔(Modest Silin, Hostage, Nord-Ost siege, 2002 ), Russia Today, 27 October 2007 〕 They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The siege was officially led by Movsar Barayev. Due to the disposition of the theater, special forces would have had to fight through 30 metres (100 feet) of corridor and attack up a well defended staircase, before they could reach the hall in which the hostages were held. The terrorists also had numerous explosives, with the most powerful in the center of the auditorium, that, if detonated, could have brought down the ceiling and caused in excess of 80 percent casualties. After a two-and-a-half day siege and the execution of two female hostages, Spetsnaz operators from Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vega Groups, supported by a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, pumped an undisclosed chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and raided it.〔 All 40 of the attackers were killed, presumably while unconscious,〔(Moscow theatre siege: Questions remain unanswered ) BBC Retrieved on 2013-16-13〕 with no casualties among Spetsnaz; about 130 hostages died, including nine foreigners, due to adverse reactions to the gas.〔 All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants.〔(Gas "killed Moscow hostages", ibid. )〕〔("Moscow court begins siege claims" ), BBC News, 24 December 2002〕 The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed, but the American and British governments deemed Russia's actions justifiable. Physicians in Moscow condemned the refusal to disclose the identity of the gas that prevented them from saving more lives. Some reports said the drug naloxone was successfully used to save some hostages.〔("Mystery of Russian gas deepens" )〕 ==Initial siege== The hostages were seized on 23 October at the House of Culture of State Ball-Bearing Plant Number 1 in the Dubrovka area of Moscow about four kilometers south-east of the Moscow Kremlin.〔 During Act II of a sold-out performance of ''Nord-Ost'' a little after 9:00 PM, 40–50 heavily armed and masked men and women drove in a bus to the theater and entered the main hall firing assault rifles in the air.〔("Chechen gunmen seize Moscow theatre" ), CNN, 24 October 2002 〕 The black and camouflage clad Chechens〔 took approximately 850–900 people hostage, including members of the audience and performers, among them an MVD general. The reaction of spectators inside the theater to the news that the theater was under terrorist attack was not uniform: some people remained calm, some reacted hysterically, and others fainted. Some performers who had been resting backstage escaped through an open window and called the police; in all, some 90 people managed to flee the building or hide. The militant leader told the hostages that the attackers (who identified themselves as a suicide squad from "the 29th Division"〔) had no grudge against foreign nationals (about 75 in number from 14 countries, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States) and promised to release anyone who showed a foreign passport. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Moscow theater hostage crisis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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