Putin to give military more power to go after terrorists

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin said Monday he will give the military broader power to strike against suspected terrorists "wherever they may be" after a hostage siege at a Moscow theater ended with 118 captives dead, most from a knockout gas used by Russian authorities.

Doctors said all but two of the hostages who died succumbed to the fumes pumped into the theater by Russian special forces before they stormed it, 2 1/2 days after heavily armed Chechen rebels staged an audacious raid.

Russian officials kept the substance a secret even as doctors treated the hundreds of survivors. U.S. officials identified it Monday as an opiate related to morphine.

Also Monday, the U.S. Embassy said it had located a body believed to be that of an American who died during the rescue operation. Two Americans are believed to have been in the theater.

Consular officials were trying to find someone who could positively identify the body, an embassy spokesman said, declining to comment on the cause of death or give any other details.

In televised comments, Putin said he would step up measures against terrorists because of what he called growing threats that they could use powerful weapons, and he suggested Russia would not refrain from launching strikes abroad.

"Russia will not ... give in to any blackmail. International terrorism is becoming more impudent, acting more cruelly. Here and there around the world threats from terrorists of the use of means comparable to weapons of mass destruction are heard," Putin said at a meeting with government ministers.

No U.S. criticism

Putin has sought to portray the Chechen conflict as a battle with international terrorists, partly to get broader support abroad.

The Bush administration, meanwhile, refused to criticize Russian special forces for using the gas, laying all of the blame for the deaths squarely on the captors.

"We are working to ascertain all the facts and circumstances," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "But as that information is developed the president feels very strongly that the people who caused this are the terrorists. "