TV grab taken from the Russian NTV channel shows Russian special forces evacuating a little girl and her mother in the Ossetian village (AFP)

MOSCOW, September 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Armed attackers took more than 400 adults and children hostage after seizing a school in southern Russia on Wednesday, September 1, one day after ten people were killed in a Moscow metro blast.

"There could be up to 400 children and teachers held hostage," Irina Terkina, a spokeswoman for President Vladimir Putin's envoy in southern Russia , was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Some 50 pupils managed to escape from the kidnappers, who reportedly include women wearing belts laden with explosives, Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported.

Local authorities have opened talks with the gunmen at the school in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia near Chechnya , according to Russia 's Interfax news agency.

They have threatened to blow up the building if police stormed it, law enforcement authorities said.  

"The hostage takers, who include men and women, are wearing explosive belts," said Ismael Chaov, a spokesman for the North Ossetian interior ministry.

Press reports put at 30 the number of hostage takers.

Local authorities in the regional capital Vladikavkaz said shooting was continuing and one of the armed men had been killed.

"One of the attackers was killed. We have no information about casualties among the civilians," Itar-Tass news agency said, quoting local police.

Tass said in a separate report, without giving a source, that some teachers may have been killed.

Television reports said the attack came during a ceremony to mark the start of the new school year.

Fresh Blast

Bodies of victims of an explosion are seen outside the Rizhskaya subway station in Moscow

The hostage ordeal came one day after at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured, when a female bomber blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station, officials said.

The explosion caused scenes of carnage outside the Rizhsky station in central Moscow , just a week after 90 people were killed in bomb attacks that brought down two passenger jets and that were blamed on Chechen fighters.

After first saying the blast was a car bomb, officials maintained that it had been carried out by a female bomber spotted before the blast and who was among the dead.

Her body was more severely damaged than the other victims, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Fifty one people were injured in the blast, 49 of whom had to be hospitalized, authorities said.

According to witnesses quoted by police, the woman bomber was walking towards the subway but saw that police were checking the papers of passers-by. She then changed course and the explosion occurred immediately afterwards.

In a statement posted on a website, a group calling itself the Islambouli Brigades said it had carried out the bombing and described it as a "heroic operation in support of Chechen Muslims."

It was the same group that claimed last week to have organized the attack on two Russian passenger planes and, as in the previous claim, it vowed to continue such strikes in Russia .

But the website claims could not be verified.

A special Moscow municipal holiday scheduled for the weekend was to go ahead but with extra security measures in place, while special patrols were being sent out to train stations and airports.

News agencies said that the station was closed after the blast and would only reopen when the damage was cleared up. Trains were going through the station without stopping.

The small mountainous republic pf Chechnya has been ravaged by conflict since 1994, with just three years of relative peace after the first Russian invasion of the region ended in August 1996 and the second began in October 1999.

At least 100,000 civilians and 10,000 Russian troops are estimated to have been killed in both invasions, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.

Human rights groups have accused Russian soldiers of committing aggressions and abuses in Chechnya in the two invasions.

International human rights watchdogs said in a joint statement released in April that rape, torture and extrajudicial executions by Russian troops have become everyday occurrences in Chechnya .