Hostage drama leader bares face

A few days stubble on his chin, dressed in combat gear and dark wollen hat, Movsar Barayev, leader of a Chechen ‘‘suicide squad’’ holding some 700 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, bared his face to the world early on Friday.

A relative of well-known Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev, Movsar Barayev was one of a handful of guerrillas shown for the first time on Russia’s private NTV channel, whose crew was briefly allowed inside the building. Barayev – the only one to show his face – was filmed with two masked men, all three heavily armed with AK-47 assault rifles, their ammunition pouches clearly full, grenades hanging from their belts. One woman was shown holding a pistol and appeared to befingering a detonator attached to what looked like a bundle of explosives strapped to her abdomen.

The trio were later joined by two women, dressed in black, an inscription in Arabic prominent on the Front of the dark hoods that covered their heads and masked their faces. The brief footage, about five minutes long, showed Barayevand his associates in the kitchen of the Melnikova Street theatre in southeastern Moscow, just a few kilometres from President Putin’s Kremlin office. >