MOSCOW, Jan. 10 -- Chechen rebels released eight of some 165 hostages they were holding Wednesday after leaving a hospital in Dagestan in a convoy of buses provided by the Russian government. Russian news reports said Russian forces had surrounded the band of 250 rebels and were conducting negotiations after the Chechens stopped on the Chechen-Dagestan border to plot their next move. Dagestani Parliamentary Chairman Magomedali Magomedov, who was leading the negotiations with the rebels, said the fate of the remaining hostages would not be decided until Thursday morning, and ruled out the possibility that the Chechens would continue their journey before daylight, the Interfax news agency reported. As night fell, Interfax reported the Chechen fighters had assumed a defensive ring around their two trucks and 11 buses, and were guarding the remaining hostages, including 30 women and 15 children, whom they threatened to kill if Russian troops attack the convoy. Among the released hostages were government officials from Dagestan, the Russian region east of Chechnya, and a Russian parliamentarian who had volunteered to travel with the rebels as a safety guarantee. The rebels took up to 3,000 people hostage in the Dagestani city of Kizlyar Tuesday, but released most of them after receiving the buses and a promise of safe passage home from officials in Dagestan. The convoy headed south and rebel leader Salman Raduyev named a Chechen town east of the capital Grozny as its destination, but halted Wednesday morning at a destroyed bridge across a river forming the border with Chechnya near the village of Pervomaisk.
In televised comments to reporters at the Kremlin, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said the rebels had reneged on what he said was a promise to free the remaining hostages at the regional frontier. 'They did not set them free although there was an agreement: bring them to the Chechen border, set them all free, and go wherever you want from there,' Yeltsin said. 'They have again violated an agreement.' When asked whether Russian troops would storm the convoy, Yeltsin said it would depend on whether or not the Chechens released their hostages. But Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin indicated the troops would not make an attempt to forcibly free the captives. He pledged to punish the rebels but said, 'we do not intend to take direct measures that would put the lives of the hostages at risk.' Raduyev led Tuesday's raid on Kizlyar, where the rebels battled with police and federal troops after seizing a hospital and taking hostages, including newborns in the maternity ward and elderly patients. Raduyev demanded the withdrawl of Russian troops from Chechnya and the annulment of Kremlin-sponsored elections that put a Moscow-backed man in the post of Chechen chief executive last month. He also demanded that Russia recognize separist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev as the leader of an independent Chechnya. Russian news agencies said seven policemen and 13 civilians were killed in the fighting. They said the rebels killed two of their hostages Tuesday. The assault on Kizlyar repeated a June crisis in which Chechen rebels took hundreds of hostages in the Russian town of Budennovsk. More than 100 people were killed in the weeklong siege, some when Russian forces attempted to free the hostages by force. With the rebel convoy from Kizlyar halted at the Chechen border, the Kremlin announced Yeltsin had flown to France to attend a memorial mass Thursday for former French President Francois Mitterrand. Yeltsin, who is considering running for re-election, had earlier indicated he might cancel the trip if all the hostages were not freed by Wednesday night. Although indicating he may be satisfied that the situation is under control, Yeltsin, by leaving, may expose himself to a repeat of the heavy domestic criticism he endured in June when he left for a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in Canada at the height of the Buddenovsk crisis.
Raduyev led Tuesday's raid on Kizlyar, where the rebels battled with police and federal troops after seizing a hospital and taking hostages, including newborns in the maternity ward and elderly patients. Raduyev demanded the withdrawl of Russian troops from Chechnya and the annulment of Kremlin-sponsored elections that put a Moscow-backed man in the post of Chechen chief executive last month. He also demanded that Russia recognize separist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev as the leader of an independent Chechnya. Russian news agencies said seven policemen and 13 civilians were killed in the fighting. They said the rebels killed two of their hostages Tuesday. The assault on Kizlyar repeated a June crisis in which Chechen rebels took hundreds of hostages in the Russian town of Budennovsk. More than 100 people were killed in the weeklong siege, some when Russian forces attempted to free the hostages by force. With the rebel convoy from Kizlyar halted at the Chechen border, the Kremlin announced Yeltsin had flown to France to attend a memorial mass Thursday for former French President Francois Mitterrand. Yeltsin, who is considering running for re-election, had earlier indicated he might cancel the trip if all the hostages were not freed by Wednesday night. Although indicating he may be satisfied that the situation is under control, Yeltsin, by leaving, may expose himself to a repeat of the heavy domestic criticism he endured in June when he left for a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in Canada at the height of the Buddenovsk crisis.
