by Karim Talbi
BESLAN, Russia, Sept 2 (AFP) - Hundreds of children, parents and teachers were held hostage by armed gunmen in a Russian school for a second day Thursday as President Vladimir Putin vowed their safety was the government's top priority.
A top pediatrician was leading desperate telephone negotiations to secure their freedom, as crowds of distraught relatives packed into a nearby municipal building in an agonising wait for news.
In his first public remarks on the siege, Putin said the top priority was securing the safety of the hostages and a local official with the FSB intelligence service said use of force was ruled out for the time being.
"All these actions are aimed not only against specific Russian citizens but against Russia as a whole," he said as he began talks at the Kremlin with Jordan's King Abdullah II.
"The most important thing is to safeguard and protect the lives of those held hostage," Putin said of the crisis, the fourth major extremist attack in Russia in a week.
The FSB official quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency said there was no alternative at present to dialogue and said a "long and tense negotiation process" should be expected.
Although the gunmen have so fare even refused to allow water and medicines for the hostages, hopes were focussed on a pediatrician who local authorities said had spoken "several times" with the hostage takers during the night.
Doctor Leonid Rochal, 71, conducted negotiations with hostage-takers at a Moscow theater siege in October 2002 and earned respect for managing to obtain the release of eight children and managing to pass over medicines.
"Talks are being carried out uniquely by telephone. The terrorists are refusing to receive a representative of the authorities," said North Ossetian interior minister Kazbek Dzantiev.
There was an overnight report the authorities had offered the rebels safe passage if they freed the hostages, but that information was not substantiated later by the authorities.
Local officials, cited by Ria-Novosti, said that the hostage-takers included rebels from Chechnya, where Russia has been locked in a draining struggle with separatists for the past decade.
Some 354 children, teachers and parents were being held, authorities said, while 12 people, including one of the hostage takers have been killed. The extremists had dropped the bodies of dead hostages out of the window of the school gymnasium.
There was conflicting information about the hostage-takers' demands, with some reports saying they sought the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the release of fellow-rebels detained in Ingushetia.
The daily Izvestia said that the notorious Chechen field commander Doku Umarov was among the abductors, who were also thought to include extremists from the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia and other countries.
Hundreds of relatives of the hostages spent a sleepless night waiting for news, tearfully scrutinizing lists of the captured and receiving help from psychiatric councillors.
"If there were just adults inside then everyone would already be dead. But these are children and I hope that hope will not abandon them," said Georgy whose three nephews and a niece are trapped in the school.
The event brought back ghastly memories of the hostage-taking at a Moscow theater by the separatists in 2002, during which 130 spectators died after police used a poison gas when they stormed the building.
Messages of support poured in to Moscow, with US President George W. Bush saying that "we stand with the Russian people" and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saying he was appalled by the attack.
On Russia's request, the UN Security Council condemned "the heinous act" in a unanimous vote late Wednesday in New York.
The siege involves at least 17 extremists, including women with suicide belts strapped to their chests, who burst into the school on the morning of the first day of the academic year early on Wedneday.
The Russian press expressed horror that the country has become a crucible of terror, with the hostage taking the latest act in a nightmarish sequence that has seen four attacks in the past nine days.
"The hostage-taking is not unique in its nightmarish nature but just another terror act in a whole series of strikes which have happened recently all around the country," warned Izvestia.
The crisis started just hours after a suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway left nine dead and scores injured while last week, 90 passengers were killed when two airliners blew up in an attack blamed on female Chechen suicide bombers.