PRO CHECHEN rebels who seized a passenger ferry with more than 160 Russians aboard in Turkey's Black Sea port of Trabzon last night threatened to blow up the ship unless their "Chechen brothers" fighting Russian forces in Dagestan were set free.
The leader of the commandos, who called himself Muhammed made the announcement in a live interview broadcast by the television channel Kanal D.
Meanwhile, in the Chechen capital of Grozny, 30 to 40 Russians were taken hostage by Chechen separatists.
"Our aim is the liberation of the whole of north Caucasia," Muhammed said.
The ship, the Avrasya, was heading westwards early yesterday from Trabzon towards Istanbul and the Bosphorus, trailed by patrol boats from the Turkish Coast Guard.
The Turkish Interior Minister, Mr Teoman Unusan, said 165 Russian tourists, some Turkish passengers and 45 crewmen were aboard the ferry, which was seized as it was about to leave Trabzon on its regular service to the Russian Black Sea port of Sochi.
Muhammed, who was speaking excellent Turkish, denied reports of violence on the ship, saying all aboard were safe. The Anatolia news agency had earlier said the commandos had shot and wounded a police officer in the initial move to capture the ship.
A Russian woman, Ms Nadezhda Naskova, who escaped from the ship before it sailed, said the commandos were beating up several Russian passengers.
The ship was reported to be sailing at about 12 knots (20km per hour), which would take it more than two days to reach Istanbul.
The action followed the continuing Russian military operation in the northern Caucasus against Chechen hostage takers in the village of Pervomaiskoye on the Dagestan Chechnya border. Up to five million people of north Caucasian origin live in Turkey.
In Dagestan, meanwhile, Russian military commanders said the encircled "Lone Wolf" rebels, being subjected to artillery and airborne pounding, had no choice but to surrender. But after two days of an almost unrelenting assault, the rebels maintained control of the centre and north of snowbound Pervomaiskoye.
"If the rebels want to escape alive, we are only interested in a white flag," Maj Gen Alexander Mikhailov, a spokesman for the Russian attack force, said. "We are finished playing games."
Casualty figures varied widely and were impossible to confirm. "For the guerrillas, we have to count in bits arms and legs," the major general said.
Itar Tass said up to six Russian soldiers had been killed in the operation, with 40 wounded. The Interior Ministry said about 60 rebels had been killed and 15 wounded.
President Yeltsin, eager not to look weak in the eyes of opponents ahead of June's presidential elections, gave his blessing to the operation.
The Chechens said they had released four of the scores of hostages they are holding to "tell the truth" about what was happening in Pervomaiskoye and to stop "deadly Russian fire". The fate of other captives was unknown.
A Chechen rebel spokesman, Mr Movladi Udugov, said by phone that the rebel leader, Mr Salman Raduyev, was unharmed after seven Russian assaults. Security officials said 26 hostages had been released since the Kremlin launched the assault.
In Chechnya the Federal Security Service (FSB) said gunmen had seized 30 people and taken them to an unknown destination.