Some 400 people, including 200 schoolchildren, have been taken hostage after a group of armed men seized a school in Russia's North Ossetia region Wednesday morning, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

 

Ismel Shaov, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesman, told Interfax that the gunmen have contacted authorities. Itar-Tass reported that the gunmen, numbering 25 to 30, demanded the Russian authorities free jailed fighters.

 

The armed men have seized the school in the town of Beslan at around 9:30 a.m. Moscow time (0530 GMT).

 

Earlier reports said the terrorists had been engaged in a gun battle with police.

 

Vladimir Yakovlev, Russian presidential envoy to the South Federal District, has confirmed the school seizure.

 

"Police and interior troop units are arriving at the school at the moment. A shootout is in progress in the area," Yakovlev was quoted by Interfax as saying.

 

A source in the Interior Ministry's central branch for the South Federal District told Interfax that one of the terrorists was killed in the shootout.

 

The hostages are reportedly being held in the school's gym, the source said.

 

North Ossetia is located in southern Russia, bordering the rebellious republic of Chechnya. The school's students are aged between seven and 17 and they were attending the first day of their new academic year.

 

Russia has suffered a series of terrorist attacks over the past week.

 

An explosion near a metro station Tuesday in northeast Moscow killed 10 people and injured 37 others.

 

The explosion came after Sunday's presidential election in Russia's Chechen republic, in which Kremlin-backed Alu Alkhanov won a landslide victory to replace pro-Moscow Akhmad Kadyrov who was killed in a terrorist bomb blast on May 9.

 

Just five days before the election, two Russian passenger planes crashed almost simultaneously, killing all the 90 people aboard. The incidents aroused fears that terrorist attacks were behind the tragedies.

 

Traces of explosives were found aboard both planes and investigators suspected that two female Chechen passengers -- each aboard one aircraft -- might have brought down the planes.

 

A group called the "Islambouli Brigades" have claimed responsibility for the twin crashes.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that an al-Qaida link to the crashes of two Russian airliners last week confirms a connection between Chechen rebels and international terrorism.

 

Chechnya, a war-torn republic in Russia's Northern Caucasus, won de-facto independence in 1996 after the pullout of Russian troops. Federal soldiers returned to the lawless republic in September 1999. Since then, a guerrilla war between Chechen rebels and federal troops has persisted, occasionally spilling into neighboring regions.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2004)