by Christopher Boian
MOSCOW, Sept 8 (AFP) - Chilling video footage of masked gunmen rigging explosives in a school packed with children fueled anger Wednesday in Russia as authorities put a 10 million-dollar price on the heads of two top Chechen rebels.
Distraught residents of Beslan meanwhile said it was right for the video from inside the hostage siege to be broadcast but continued to demand answers on how the attack was able to spin out of control or occur at all.
And Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov met with President Vladimir Putin, offering for the first time the government's version of how events began and evolved during the three-day siege.
The videotape, shown publicly for the first time on Russia's NTV network late Tuesday, showed children, parents and teachers packed into the Beslan school gym, crouching on the floor with the hostage-takers standing over them.
One masked gunman pointed forcefully downwards where the video zoomed in on an object under his foot that the television commentator said was a mine. A boy with his hands on his head sat at his feet and appeared afraid.
The footage also showed a woman dressed in black from head to foot and with her face also covered standing in a doorway near the gym wearing an belt laden with explosives and brandishing a pistol.
Militants were seen rigging wires attached to two basketball hoops at opposite ends of the gym and the video also showed close-ups of bombs that had been suspended from the wires over the heads of the hostages.
The NTV commentator said the video was shot by one of the hostage-takers themselves and a spokesman for the network told AFP that it was acquired by an NTV correspondent in Beslan from his own sources.
In Beslan, local residents expressed outrage after viewing the video but said the tape needed to be seen nonetheless.
"I think that it was right to show the images to people, the entire world has a right to see them," said Rima Somartova, 57, held hostage with her two grandchildren, who both survived.
"These people are just animals, and so many children died. But people have to know everything," said Olga Beovayeva, 60.
Excerpts from the 87-second video were broadcast by television networks around the world and were played again on NTV Wednesday.
In Moscow, the FSB security service announced it was putting a price on the heads of two top Chechen rebel leaders of 300 million rubles (about 10 million dollars).
The FSB, quoted by Interfax news agency, said it would pay the money "for reliable information on their whereabouts leading to the neutralization" of former Chechen president Aslan Maskhkadov and of warlord Shamil Basayev.
The report said the two were responsible for "inhuman" crimes and said the anonymity and security of any informants would be assured.
In a statement from a spokesman based in London, Maskhadov on Tuesday denied involvement with the 32 gunmen who seized 1,200 hostages at the school in Beslan in Russia's southern republic of North Ossetia.
Both men have claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Russian forces in and around Chechnya.
Russian Chief of Staff Yury Baluyevsky meanwhile said that Russia was prepared to carry out pre-emptive strikes on "terrorist bases" in the wake of the Beslan attack.
"Military steps are an extreme measure in the fight against terrorism," Russia's Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky said after talks with US General James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe.
"Our position on pre-emptive strikes has been stated before, but I will repeat it. We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region -- but this does not mean that we will resort to the use of nuclear force," he said.
Other Russian officials have made similar comments in the past and Baluyevsky's comments were downplayed by the European Commission in Brussels.
"I would pay more attention if it had come from Putin," said Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for the European Union's external affairs commissioner.
After his meeting with Putin, the state prosecutor, quoted by Russian news agencies, described how the hostage-takers had arrived at the Beslan school the morning of September 1 and immediately rounded up the hostages.
They number "around 30" and included two women, he said, adding that they were led by someone referred to by the others as "colonel" and had brought a "large quanity" of weaponry to the school with them in three vehicles, including a truck.
After some of the hostage-takers protested at the seizure of a school, the "colonel" shot and killed one of his own accomplices as a warning to the others to show unquestioning allegiance.
He also later used a remote control device to detonate the explosive belts on the two female hostage-takers and to warn both of the other members of the commando and the hostages, Ustinov told Putin, according to the agencies.
Meanwhile in Vladikavkaz, the top official in North Ossestia promised his government would step down amid criticism for its handling of the school hostage siege.
"In two days time a decree will be signed over the resignation of the government," president Alexander Dzasokhov told over 1,000 angry demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building in the republic's capital.