Moscow ? President Vladimir Putin led a national day of mourning Monday and pledged Russia would not surrender to terrorist “blackmail.” Relatives and friends grieved for 118 captives who died in the siege at a Moscow theater, all but two from the paralyzing gas used to rescue them.

Using words remarkably similar to those of President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, Putin pledged in televised comments to give the military broader powers to move against suspected terrorists and their sponsors.

“Russia will answer with measures adequate to the threat to the Russian Federation in all places where the terrorists, the organizers of these crimes or their ideological or financial sponsors are located,” Putin said. “I emphasize wherever they may be.”

Putin has said the theater raid was planned abroad, and the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday claimed, without offering evidence, that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist organization was involved.

Officials said 405 of the freed captives remained hospitalized, 45 of them in grave condition. Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko said 239 people had been released.

Russian medical officials said 116 of the hostages held by Chechen rebels in a Moscow theater had succumbed to the gas, the exact composition of which remained a secret even to medical personnel treating the victims.

As pressure grew on Russian authorities to identify the gas used in the raid, some lawmakers and commentators criticized the government.

Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party, criticized authorities for failing to treat the hostages promptly after pumping the gas into the theater.

An unidentified man lays flowers outside the theater where hundreds of people were held hostage by Chechen rebels. Stunned Russians on Monday mourned the victims of the country's latest terrorist assault.

“Why after special services brilliantly carried out the operation were there not enough ambulances, doctors and intensive care equipment? Why was medical aid not given on the spot?” he said on Russian television, referring to the fact that many victims were carried and dragged out of the building and put on buses to local hospitals.

Hundreds of people some weeping openly placed flowers and candles in a cold rain near the theater in a rundown neighborhood in southeast Moscow.

Some mourners said they felt authorities had done all they could to protect lives.

“There was no other way,” said retiree Lyudmila Yemelyanova, expressing the sentiments of many who came to pay respects. “If the explosives inside the building had gone off, then not only the theater but all the neighboring buildings would have been destroyed.”