# News Alert: Moscow Hostage Crisis **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 24, 2002, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747 "2002-10-24T21:13:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/1 "2002-10-24T21:13:37Z")
I know this is a big news day, but you Tom Clancy fans out there might want to take note of what’s going on in Moscow. A group of 40 Chechen militants are holding a theatre full of some 700 people [hostage](http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/24/moscow.siege/index.html). About 75 of them are foreign nationals, including Australians, Netherlanders, Germans, Brits and Yanks. One out of four of the hostage-takers are strapped with explosives. They are armed to the teeth. When a couple of women managed to escape, the militants shot at them with RPGs. Their demands are completely unreasonable: pull all troops out of Chechnya _right now_. Vladimir Putin is sounding very pissed off: “The main goal of our law enforcement agencies and special services in planning measures is aimed at freeing the hostages with the maximum ensurance of their safety.” The interesting thing is this: the Russians are still the caretaker of one of the largest [“special services”](http://www.spetsnaz.kit.net/spets/training.htm) in the world, whatever they’re calling Spetsnaz these days. In theory, they should have some very mean anti-terrorism teams. Obviously, nobody wants this to go toe-to-toe, but the situation appears to be intractable, and the Chechens are claiming they are suicidal and are threatening to start killing ten people an hour. If this goes down, it will be the largest known hostage rescue attempt since [Entebbe](http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Terrorism/entebbe.html), and it will be studied by hostage-rescue teams for decades. Keep an eye on it, and if you’re the praying type, you might want to start now. ---
**Author:** ![Kitsune1527](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Kitsune1527](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kitsune1527)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/2 "2002-10-24T21:21:37Z")
Yipe. Barghest told the Expatriates about this this morning, but . . . Still yipes. Hope this turns out okay, and that neither side gets too twitchy . . . ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/3 "2002-10-24T21:29:17Z")
I started a couple of hours ago. You’re right, this is bad bad bad. They released a few pregnant women and children and Muslims last I heard. Let’s hope some of the negotiators have extremely good bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/4 "2002-10-24T21:53:13Z")
Spetsnaz link isn’t working. I’ve been glued to this story myself. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/5 "2002-10-24T22:00:21Z")
I was thinking that this whole scenario sounds like a mission from Rainbow:6 or Rogue Spear or something… Damn. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. The Russians aren’t known for being nice to criminals so I fear that these asshole hostage takers feel that they don’t have much to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/6 "2002-10-24T22:05:28Z")
Sorry about that link. It was working earlier, but not now. Heres another, which looks to have ripped off a lot of the original page: [http://www.combatsombo.com/Spetsnaz.htm](http://www.combatsombo.com/Spetsnaz.htm) ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-alert-moscow-hostage-crisis/133747/7 "2002-10-28T00:35:32Z")
**bernse** –there’s a mission in Rogue Spear or maybe the Rainbow 6 add-on where you have to storm an opera house in Czechoslovakia.