October 26, 2002	Saturday	Sha’aban 19,1423

MOSCOW, Oct 25: A few days stubble on his chin, dressed in combat gear and dark wollen hat, Movsar Barayev, leader of the 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.

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.

One woman was shown holding a pistol and appeared to be fingering a detonator attached to what NTV correspondent Sergei Dedukh said looked like a bundle of explosives wrapped in cellophane and strapped to her abdomen.

The brief footage, about five minutes long, showed Barayev and his associates in the kitchen of the Melnikova Street theatre in southeastern Moscow, just a few kilometres from President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin offices.

“He (Barayev) is the only one of the six terrorists we saw who was not wearing a mask, was not hiding his face,” NTV’s Dedukh said, adding that the guerrilla leader appeared cool and collected.—Reuters