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Russian paramedics remove the body of a victim from the metro train bomb explosions in Moscow - Source: Reuters -
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Two female suicide bombers killed at least 38 people on packed
Moscow metro trains, stirring fears of a broader campaign in
Russia's heartland by Islamists from the North Caucasus.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who cemented his power in 1999 by
launching a war to crush Chechen separatism, broke off a trip to
Siberia, declaring "terrorists will be destroyed".
Witnesses described panic at two central Moscow stations after the
blasts, with morning commuters falling over each other in dense
smoke and dust as they tried to escape the worst attack on the
Russian capital in six years.
Sixty-four others were injured, many gravely, and officials said
the death toll could rise. Russia's top security official said the
bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but Federal Security
Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov said those responsible had
links to the North Caucasus, a heavily Muslim region plagued by
insurgency whose leaders have threatened to attack cities and
energy pipelines elsewhere in Russia.
"A crime that is terrible in its consequences and heinous in its
manner has been committed," Putin told emergency officials in a
video call.
"I am confident that law enforcement bodies will spare no effort
to track down and punish the criminals. Terrorists will be
destroyed."
The Kremlin had declared victory in its battle with Chechen
separatists who fought two wars with Moscow. But violence has
intensified over the past year in the neighbouring republics of
Dagestan and Ingushetia, where Islamist militancy overlaps with
clan rivalries, criminal gangs and widespread poverty.
The chief of the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB,
said: "Body parts belonging to two female suicide bombers were
found ... and according to initial data, these persons are linked
to the North Caucasus."
Monday evening's (NZT) metro attacks are likely to turn the
North Caucasus into a major political issue. Critics said the
attacks demonstrated the failure of Kremlin policy in Chechnya,
where human rights groups accuse Russian forces of
brutality.
"They are simply beasts," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said of
the bombers after laying a bouquet of red roses on the platform of
one of the metro stations.
"We will find and destroy them all."
The first blast tore through a metro train just before 8 am (local
time) as it stood at the Lubyanka station, close to the
headquarters of the FSB. It killed at least 23 people.
A second blast, less than 40 minutes later in a train waiting at
the Park Kultury metro station, opposite Gorky Park, killed 12 more
people, emergencies ministry officials said. Another three people
died in hospital.
Reuters photographers saw body bags being brought out of both
stations. Some of the wounded were airlifted to hospitals in
helicopters and central Moscow was brought to a standstill as
police closed off major roads.
"It was very scary. I saw a dead body," said Valentin Popov, a
19-year-old student travelling on a train to the Park Kultury
station, told Reuters.
"Everyone was screaming. There was a stampede at the doors. I saw
one woman holding a child and pleading with people to let her
through, but it was impossible."
US President Barack Obama condemned the bombings as did European
Union leaders.
"The American people stand united with the people of Russia in
opposition to violent extremism and heinous terrorist attacks that
demonstrate such disregard for human life, and we condemn these
outrageous acts," Obama said.
No compromise
The Russian rouble fell sharply on the bombings, but later
regained ground, with traders arguing the bombs were unlikely to
undermine the strength of the currency.
"The Russian stock market is more than stable, the rouble is
stable," said Anatoly Darakov, head of Russian equity trading at
Citi in Moscow. "It's not the first blast in Moscow."
Eye witnesses spoke of panic after the blasts, which ripped
through stations just a few kilometres from the
Kremlin.
"I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or
second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations
reverberate through my body," an unidentified man who was on a
train at Park Kultury told RIA news agency.
Surveillance camera footage posted on the internet showed several
motionless bodies lying on the floor or slumped against the wall in
Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers crouched over victims,
trying to treat them.
The current death toll makes it the worst attack on Moscow since
February 2004, when a suicide bombing killed at least 39 people and
wounded more than 100 on a metro train.
Chechen rebels were blamed for that attack. Rebel leader Doku
Umarov, fighting for an Islamic emirate embracing the whole region,
vowed last month to take the war to Russian cities.
"Blood will no longer be limited to our (Caucasus) cities and
towns. The war is coming to their cities," the Chechen rebel leader
said in an interview on an Islamist website.
Jonathan Eyal, of London's Royal United Services Institute, saw a
personal challenge to Putin, who remains the chief power in the
land.
"This is a direct affront to Vladimir Putin, whose entire rise to
power was built on his pledge to crush the enemies of Russia ...
It's an affront to his muscular image," Eyal said.
The Chechen rebellion began in the 1990s as a largely ethnic
nationalist movement, fired by a sense of injustice over the 1940s
transportation of Chechens to Central Asia, with enormous loss of
life, by dictator Josef Stalin. Largely since the second war,
Russian officials say, Islamic militants from outside Russia have
joined the campaign, lending it a new intensity.
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