Armed Men Storm Russian Town Hostage Takers Demand End To War In Chechnya; Dozens Killed

As many as 100 heavily armed men descended upon a small southern Russian town in a terrorist rampage Wednesday, killing dozens of people, setting fires and taking as many as 500 hostages. The Russian government blamed Chechen separatists for the attack.

The attackers demanded that Russia’s 6-month-old war against the breakaway region of Chechnya be halted and threatened to kill the hostages “unless the Russian military immediately stops the hostilities,” according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. A spokesman for Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev denied responsibility for the attack, Russian news agencies reported, saying it was a provocation by Moscow.

The attack on Budennovsk, a chemical industry town in the Stavropol region of Russia about 80 miles north of Chechnya, began at midday when the terrorists drove heavy trucks into the city and attempted to seize the local police department, which repelled the attack in a firefight.

Russian news agencies said the terrorists also attempted to take the federal security service building and the local bank, again unsuccessfully. They then opened random fire on civilians, set buildings on fire and stole cars. Russian television news Wednesday night showed bodies lying in the streets of the town.

According to the news agency Interfax, the terrorists searched out civilians, then shot them dead. They fired onto the streets with machine guns perched on the tops of buildings, including a hospital where patients and personnel were being held hostage Wednesday night.

Russian television reported that the hospital’s chief doctor called security officials and told them that the terrorists were demanding that Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin go to Grozny to meet Dudayev, order an immediate cease-fire in Chechnya and withdraw all troops.

Yeltsin sent tens of thousands of federal troops into Chechnya six months ago to put down a separatist movement led by Dudayev and stop what he called “illegal armed formations.” In recent days, Russian soldiers have been conducting what Moscow considers to be mostly a mop-up operation in Chechnya.

After the rampage, Russian television reported between 50 and 200 people dead, including 17 of the gunmen. A security officer in Moscow said the gunmen seized at least 200 hostages, but other security sources said there could be 300 hostages.