Deaths top 100 in raid on school

Militants opened fire on hostages as they fled.
BESLAN, Russia (AP) -- Commandos stormed a school in southern Russia today and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire.
More than 100 bodies were reportedly found in the gymnasium where hostages had been held.
The extent of the casualties was not immediately determined. The militants, who had been demanding independence for nearby Chechnya, had been keeping up to 1,500 hostages -- mostly women and children -- in the sweltering gymnasium for more than two days.
The dead are seen
A cameraman for the British network ITN reported seeing around 100 bodies in the gym. The correspondent for Russia's Interfax news agency reported that there were dozens of bodies in the school, including about 100 in the gym, and that some were killed when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion.
Other casualties were reported when militants opened fire on hostages as they fled the building and in fighting that went on for several hours afterward.
A Russian presidential aide said nine of the 10 militants killed in the hostage crisis were Arab mercenaries, according to the Interfax news agency. The regional health minister said that 409 people were wounded, including at least 218 children.
Russian authorities took control of the school in the assault, but the Interfax news agency reported that three militants remain blockaded in the basement of the school, possibly including the head hostage-taker.
Rebels escape
About a dozen hostage-takers escaped, with the Interfax new agency reporting that they split into three groups to blend in with the hostages and took refuge in a home nearby. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house, Interfax said.
Huge columns of smoke billowed from the school, where windows were shattered, part of roof was gone and another part charred.
The scene around the school was chaotic, with people running through the streets, the wounded carried off on stretchers.
An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood.
Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way!"
Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children -- some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood -- to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier.
One child had a bandage on her head; others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted.
Had no food, water
The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety.
Many of the children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building Wednesday morning.
The hostage-takers had refused to let food or water into the school throughout the standoff.
"I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all right. It's all right."
Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of four children and a woman.
A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers and told AP that Russian officials expected "very many" wounded.
Many wounded
The head of a children's hospital in the regional capital of Vladikavkaz said five of the 68 wounded children brought there were in grave condition.
Interfax reported more than 400 wounded, including hostages and local residents.
The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff in Beslan, a town of 30,000 in North Ossetia, a republic near the war-torn region of Chechnya. North Ossetia's president, Alexander Dzasokhov, said the militants had demanded independence for the nearby war-torn region of Chechnya.
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