MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Security Service on Wednesday offered a reward of 300 million rubles (US$10.3 million) for information that could help "neutralize" two Chechen terrorist leaders, and a military official reasserted Russia's right to strike terrorists the world over.

"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases, we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, told reporters.

Television broadcast footage Wednesday of Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov briefing President Vladimir Putin on the investigation into the taking of more than 1,200 hostages in a school in southern Russia last week. His was the first official acknowledgment that the number of hostages had been so high; the government inmitially said about 350 people had been seized. A regional official later said the number had been 1,181.

The Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said terrorist leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov had been responsible for "inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation." Russian officials have accused the two of masterminding last week's attack in the small city of Beslan in North Ossetia, a region bordering Chechnya.

While Russia has offered rewards before for information on the rebels' whereabouts, the reward offered Wednesday was by far the biggest yet.

Ustinov said 326 hostages were killed and 727 wounded in the attack, which ended Friday in a wave of explosions and gunfire. He said 210 bodies had been identified, and forensic workers also were trying to identify 32 body fragments. The death toll could rise, Ustinov said.

Details of the atrocity

His deputy, Sergei Fridinsky, said 100 bodies had yet to be identified, the Interfax news agency reported. He also said that the bodies of 12 terrorists had been identified, and that some had taken part in a June attack in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, which targeted police and killed 88 people.

Various officials had previously leaked some details of the investigation, but Wednesday's TV broadcast of Ustinov's briefing was the first attempt by the government to give a formal account of the massacre. The prosecutor said his information was based on interviews with witnesses and the one alleged terrorist being held.

Ustinov said the approximately 30 terrorists, including two women, had met in a forest early Sept. 1 before heading to School No. 1 in Beslan in a military-type truck and two jeeps packed with weapons and ammunition.

People who had gathered to mark the first day of school were herded into the gym by the terrorists, some of whom voiced objections to seizing a school. Detainee Nur-Pashi Kulayev said the group's leader, who went by the name Colonel, shot one of the terrorists and said he would do the same to any other terrorists or hostages who did not show "unconditional obedience."

Later that day, he detonated the explosives worn by two female attackers, killing them, in order to enforce the lesson, Ustinov said.

One of the terrorists was stationed with his foot on a button that would set off the explosives, Ustinov said; if he lifted his foot, the bombs strung up around the school gymnasium would detonate, he said.

On Friday, the terrorists decided to change the arrangement of the explosives, and they appear to have set off one bomb by mistake, Ustinov said. That sparked panic as hostages tried to flee and the terrorists opened fire.

On Tuesday night, Russians got a chilling glimpse of conditions inside the school when NTV television broadcast images that the station said were recorded by the assailants, presumably for an accounting to their leaders.

Hundreds of hostages were shown seated in the school's cramped gym. Many had their hands behind their heads. The wood floor was stained with blood.

Football-sized bundles of explosives were hanging from a basketball hoop. One terrorist stood among the hostages with a boot on what NTV said was a book rigged with a detonator.

War against terrorism

The Foreign Ministry said Russia would take new steps seeking the extradition of people it says are linked with terrorism, including Chechen rebel representatives Akhmed Zakayev and Ilyas Akhmadov.

Zakayev, an envoy for Maskhadov, has been granted refugee status in Britain. Akhmadov has asylum in the US.

The hostage-taking and other recent atrocities "will help many in the West, where Zakayev and Akhmadov have found political asylum, to see the true face of terror and understand the measure of their delusion," the ministry said.

For the most part, the popular Putin has avoided the brunt of the anger over the terror attacks.

"Of course I support him, and it's necessary to be even more harsh with terrorists," said Galina Kiselyova, 66, a history teacher who was at an anti-terrorism rally in Moscow on Tuesday, which authorities said had brought out 130,000 demonstrators. "We cannot let go of Chechnya - the Caucasus is ours."

In the regional capital Vladikavkaz, more than 1,000 people gathered Wednesday for a rally to demand that North Ossetian officials resign over the handling of the siege. After about an hour of impassioned speeches, the crowd surged toward North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov's office, shouting his name. A line of police with clubs blocked them.

"We've had enough words. It's time to act," said one rally speaker as the crowd held up signs, including one that read, "Russia - Strengthen Your Outposts."

(Agencies via Xinhua)