Please see here for earlier news.

FRIDAY 9am est
Though this episode is being characterized as a political confrontation, this quote from the al Jazeera broadcast is instructive:

"We have
chosen this approach...for the freedom of the Chechen people and there is no difference in where we die, and therefore we have decided to die here, in Moscow. And we will take with us the lives of hundreds of sinners."

Are they sinners for political reasons? No they are sinners because they are not Muslims: the Muslims in the crowd were released when the terrorists took over.

Reuters reports that some children were released today:

A Chechen separatist "suicide squad" freed eight children on Friday but kept some 700 people hostage in a Moscow theater rigged with explosives.

The children, aged between six and 12, were led to safety by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross and, a Red Cross official said, they were in good health. Seven other hostages had been freed earlier.

....Diplomats waited for the rebels to honor a pledge to free about 75 foreigners among their hostages on Friday, including Australians, Austrians, Britons, Germans and three Americans.

But as officials from various embassies arrived at and left the theater, there was no word as to their fate.

....Earlier FSB official Sergei Ignatchenko said seven Russian hostages were freed, before the eight children were released.

"We hope in the very near future that the terrorists will release more hostages, children, women and people who are in a difficult physical condition," he said.

....Theater spokeswoman Yelena Malyonkina told Reuters: "There is a big bomb in the center of the hall. The stage is mined as well as all the passage ways. Fifteen guerrillas who are covered with explosives are on duty in the hall. They watch all possible directions from which a storming of the building may start."

UPDATE - Noon est Friday
Desperate and serious:

Chechens holding about 600 hostages in a Moscow theater set a dawn Saturday deadline to begin killing the captives if Russia does not agree to pull its army out of Chechnya.

The threat late Friday came shortly after Russia made its first known offer to the rebels, guaranteeing their lives if all the hostages were freed from the theater where they were taken captive Wednesday night during a popular musical.

Daria Morganova, a spokeswoman for the theater, told The Associated Press the threat was reported in a cell phone call from a hostage actor. Specific demands are unknown, but the rebels have repeatedly said Russian troops must leave Chechnya, the mainly Muslim province in the Caucasus where war has raged for most of the last decade.