AL QUDS, Oct 27: An Israeli expert said in remarks published here on Sunday that nerve gas may have been used during the bloody assault of a Moscow theatre that left more than 90 hostages and 50 of their Chechen captors dead.

“There is no sleeping gas which can be brought into a theatre to neutralize people quickly,” said an anaesthesia specialist from Jerusalem’s Hadassah University hospital, quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz.

“It seems to me that the substance used has no connection to anaesthetics ... the only thing that seems plausible is that they used nerve gas — that explains the patients’ bad condition and the need for respiration”, said Professor Yoel Donchin.

Russian authorities said sleeping gas had been pumped into the theatre to neutralize the Chechen rebels who had reportedly rigged the theatre with explosives which hostages said were to be set off in the event of an attack.

Official sources initially said “up to 30” hostages had died in the special forces assault but the toll increased sharply to “more than 90” captives.

But a Russian doctor quoted in Haaretz also speculated the soldiers had used “low concentrations of nerve gas,” while other experts said “new chemical substances that featured hallucinogens, perhaps even LSD,” may have been used.

Haaretz speculated that the refusal by Russian authorities to allow visitors into the hospitals after the hostages were rushed there for treatment may have been a bid to hide the agent they had used in the storming.—AFP

US ASKS DETAILS: The United States has asked the Russian authorities to reveal what gas was used by special forces in their assault to rescue hostages from a Moscow theatre but has not received any reply, a US embassy spokesman said Sunday.