RUSSIA Militants at school release 31 hostages

One official said 16 people had been killed, while another said it was seven.
BESLAN, Russia (AP) -- Camouflaged security agents carried babies to safety after militants holding hundreds of hostages at a school released at least 31 women and children today, and officials expressed hope that negotiations would bring more progress in the standoff in southern Russia.
But a crowd of hostages' relatives keeping vigil outside the school was shaken when a pair of explosions went off just ahead of the release. Officials said militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that got too close to the school. Neither car was hit, officials said.
The developments came after a night of telephone negotiations between Russian authorities and the militants, who stormed the school Wednesday, rounding up children and adults into a gym and threatening to blow up the building if police launch an assault.
Local official Lev Dzugayev called the release "the first success" and expressed hope for further progress in negotiations. He has said between 15 and 24 militants were thought to be in the school, which has been surrounded and cordoned off by security forces.
The rescue operation's headquarters reported that 26 women and children were released in one group, and that another group included three women and two children.
Women and children
Regional parliamentary spokeswoman Fatima Kabalova said that several elderly women and a group of children were released.
An Associated Press Television News reporter saw soldiers escorting two women and at least two children away from the school. The children were in the soldiers' arms. Russian television showed camouflage-clad men carrying babies, one wrapped in a blanket and one without a shirt.
Casualty reports in the raid varied widely, but an official in the joint-command operation for the crisis said on condition of anonymity early today that 16 people were killed -- 12 inside the school, two who died in hospital and two others whose bodies still lay outside the school and could not be removed because of gunfire. Thirteen others were wounded.
However, Dzugayev said that seven were killed. He also gave the number of hostages at 354. The children were mostly under 14.
String of attacks
The hostage-taking in Beslan, a town of about 30,000, appeared to be the latest in a string of attacks by insurgents from Chechnya, the war-torn republic near North Ossetia. Suspicion has fallen on Chechen rebels, although no claim of responsibility has been made.
Valery Andreyev, the Federal Security Service's chief in North Ossetia, seemed to rule out the immediate use of force against the hostage-takers.
"There is no alternative to dialogue," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted him as saying. "One should expect long and tense negotiations."
Sporadic gunfire chattered in the area through the night, keeping the crowds of relatives around the school on edge. Today -- 30 hours into the crisis -- two large explosions about 10 minutes apart rocked the area, raising a cloud of black smoke.
Anxious relatives rushed to police barricades, trying to see what happened. The rescue operation's headquarters said militants in the school fired RPGs at two cars that had apparently driven too close to the building. Neither car was hit, the headquarters said.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.