BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 3 -- Armed guerrillas holding a school in southern Russia allowed two dozen young children and their mothers to flee to safety Thursday but refused to release hundreds of other hostages, as this small town near Chechnya settled into a tense stalemate punctuated by gunfire.
Dramatic scenes of near-naked babies being carried to freedom by camouflage-clad soldiers did little to alleviate the growing fear among relatives of the remaining hostages two days into the standoff. Senior officials said little progress had been made in securing an end to the siege, but at 7:30 a.m. Friday talks were to resume after a calm overnight.
The guerrillas refused to allow food or medicine to be sent for the hundreds of trapped children inside Beslan's School No. 1. President Vladimir Putin called the situation "horrible" and pledged to do everything possible to "save the life and health of those who are hostages."
The heavily armed insurgents -- described by officials and people who fled the school as a mix of ethnic Chechens, Ingush, Russians and Ossetians -- are demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the nearby separatist republic of Chechnya and the release of guerrillas jailed after a raid this summer in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya. They have mined the school and threatened to blow it up if the government tries to storm it.
In a sign of Russian authorities' growing concern, Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev said in an interview that two government mediators called him in London on Thursday night and discussed his possible participation in negotiations, the first overture to the rebel government-in-exile in several years.
The siege capped a week of terror attacks elsewhere in Russia -- the nearly simultaneous downing of two airliners last week and a suicide bombing Tuesday at a Moscow subway station -- that were blamed on Chechen women. The new spasm of terrorism, Putin said, threatens to "explode the fragile balance" in Chechnya and the neighboring Caucasus regions of southern Russia.
Putin, who canceled a trip to Turkey to attend to the crisis, now faces the difficult decision of whether to order troops to storm the school, risking massive casualties, like the 129 patrons who died in a 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, or violate his own long-standing policy and negotiate with terrorists.
The attack on the school, in the region of North Ossetia just west of Chechnya, came at the close of Wednesday's opening-day ceremony, just after 9 a.m., when hundreds of students, teachers and parents were packed into the gym. About a dozen adults were killed in the initial shootout.
Two days into the standoff, confusion remained over the number of hostages, and many relatives here accused the government of deliberately understating the total.
The official tally was reported at 354 Thursday morning by Lev Dzugaev, an aide to the North Ossetian president. Minutes later, local Interior Ministry chief Kazbek Dzantiyev said 400 children and an unknown number of adults were in the building. Parents who were gathered in the local House of Culture said the actual number was far higher, and separatist leader Zakayev said he was told by the government mediators that the total was close to 1,000.
Estimates on the number of guerrillas were similarly uncertain, ranging from 15 to 40, including at least two women wearing explosives.
"When will you stop lying and tell the truth?" shouted a man in the crowd that gathered around Dzugaev at one point. Another man demanded to know, "How are they going to survive without food and water?" He did not get an answer.
Officials have refused to confirm the demands being put forward by the hostage takers, though several sources said the group wanted a pullout of Russian troops from Chechnya and the release of about 30 guerrillas arrested after the raid this summer in Ingushetia.
Russia's state-controlled TV networks have followed the Kremlin's lead, not reporting the demands or the possibility of a higher hostage number than the official total.
