LONDON, Sept. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Wednesday voiced his support for Russia's threat to carry out pre-emptive strikes against terrorist bases outside its territory.

    "I think the reaction is an understandable one," said Straw in London on Wednesday after Russia's chief of staff Yuri Baluyevsky said Russia is prepared to launch pre-emptive strikes against "terrorist bases" in any part of the world.

    "The United Nations charter does give the right of self-defenseand the UN itself has accepted that an imminent or likely threat of terrorism certainly entitles any state to take appropriate action," Straw said, adding "I don't think President Putin was talking about launching any immediate attack."

    More than 300 people, about half of them children, were killed by militants and more than 700 wounded in a siege in Russia's southern republic of North Ossetia. Some 30 heavily-armed terrorists seized a local school, holding about 1,000 children and adults hostage for over 51 hours.

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday expressed his "sympathy and horror" over the bloody end of the Russian hostages crisis, saying Britain stand firmly behind Russia's fight against terrorism.

    Also on Tuesday, local media said, Britain's Queen Elizabeth IImade an undisclosed sum of personal donation to British Red Cross to support survivors and families of those that died in the terrorist attack in North Ossetia. Enditem