WOMEN PART OF SUICIDE BOMB TEAM THAT KILLED 40

December 5, 2003 – (Scotsman News – UK) Three women and a man took part in the suicide bomb attack that killed at least 40 people and wounded scores on a Russian commuter train packed with school children and students near war torn Chechnya today.

Fragments of the suspected bomber’s body were found with grenades attached to his feet, Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin.

Patrushev said three women were also involved in the attack, including two who jumped from the train before the blast and one who was injured and unlikely to survive.

Putin called the attack “an attempt to destabilise the situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections.” Russians vote for a new parliament on Sunday.

The force of the blast – the second fatal attack on the line since September – hurled some passengers from the carriage and trapped others under a mound of twisted, ragged metal.

Bomb disposal experts carefully entered the wreckage to blow up undetonated explosives, setting off three booms.

Galina Fedosova, deputy health minister in the Stavropol region, said 40 people were killed. She said 34 died at the scene and six in hospitals.

Hospitals in the region admitted 148 wounded, said Major General Nikolai Lityuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Twenty-nine passengers were only lightly injured.
Vladimir Rudyak, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office, said the force of the blast was equal to 22 pounds of TNT.

“We will find those who did it,” said Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, who also heads the biggest pro-Kremlin party competing in the elections. “The earth will be burning under their feet.”

The rebel Chechen government led by President Aslan Maskhadov denied it was responsible for the explosion.

“We repeat that the Chechen government is guided by the principles of international humanitarian law,” said a statement. “We therefore condemn any acts of violence that directly or indirectly target the civilian population anywhere in the world.”

In Moscow, Prosecutor General’s office spokeswoman Natalya Vishnyakova said that detectives were investigating many scenarios, including those tied with Sunday’s election for Russia’s lower house of parliament.

The Federal Security Service said along with the dead suicide bomber, some unexploded grenades and remnants of a bag believed to have carried the bomb were found. The bomb was filled with shrapnel.

Patrushev told Putin authorities suspect accomplices in the attack may have been watching from cars near the site.

The blast occurred in the train’s second carriage at around 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), in a rush-hour attack that seemed calculated to kill and injure a maximum number of people. The train was approaching the station at Yessentuki, about 750 miles south of Moscow.

It was carrying a large number of students from local schools and universities.
The blast occurred when the train was 500 yards from the station, said Anatoly Lesnykh, a spokesman for Stavropol’s governor.

The force of the explosion toppled the carriage onto its side and fire fighters and ambulance workers struggled to pull victims from the buckled mounds of wreckage.

Hours after the blast, rescue workers continued to pull dead from underneath the carriage.

Suicide bombings and other attacks have killed more than 250 people in and around Chechnya and in Moscow in the past year.

In May, a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.

In June, a female suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians at a major staging point for Russian troops in Chechnya, killing at least 16 people.

In Moscow, a double suicide bombing at a rock concert in July killed the female attackers and 15 other people.

Less than a week later, a bomb a woman brought into Moscow city centre killed an explosives expert who tried to defuse it.

Russian forces have been bogged down in Chechnya since 1999, when they returned following rebel raids on a neighbouring Russian region.

Earlier, they fought an unsuccessful 1994-96 war against separatists that ended in de facto independence for the region.

From: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2264518