Up to 30 Armed Men Seize Moscow Theater 34 minutes ago
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Up to 30 gunmen, seized a Moscow theater staging a musical late Wednesday, firing shots in the air and holding a number of people hostage, police and news agencies said.
A Reuters reporter close to the theater said he had heard four to five gunshots near the building. It was not immediately clear who fired the shots or whether they came from inside the building, where some 700 people were being held.
Interfax news agency, one of whose reporters was in the theater at the time, said the gunmen had let members of the audience make phone calls and allowed children to be released.
Muslim members of the audience attending the production of "North-East" were also allowed to leave, Interfax said. Police said they had as yet received no demands from the gunmen. Reports put the number of gunmen in the theater between 20 and 30.
Elite police teams rushed to the scene but there were no initial reports of casualties.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) had been informed of the incident, which happened on the eve of his official visit to Europe.
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