15 dead in Russian rail station suicide attack
Print Edition
At least 15 people died and scores were wounded yesterday as a female suicide bomber struck at a railway station in southern Russia, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February’s Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Volgograd, but it came several months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for new attacks against civilian targets, including the Sochi Games.
Volgograd, 900 kilometers south of Moscow, lies about 650 kilometers northeast of Sochi, a Black Sea resort flanked by the North Caucasus Mountains.
Suicide bombings and other attacks linked to Islamic rebels roaming the North Caucasus have rocked Russia for years. The government has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, police and other security personnel to protect the Winter Olympics, President Vladimir Putin’s pet project, and the organizers have pledged to make the Sochi Games the “safest Olympics in history.”
Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the nation’s top investigative agency, the Investigative Committee, said the suicide bomber detonated her explosives in front of a metal detector just behind the station’s main entrance.
“When the suicide bomber saw a policeman near a metal detector, she became nervous and set off her explosive device,” Markin said.
He added that the bomb contained about 10 kilograms of TNT and was rigged with shrapnel.
Security controls
Markin said security controls prevented a far greater number of casualties at the station, which was packed with people at a time when several trains were delayed.
Markin said 13 people and the bomber were killed on the spot and another victim died in hospital.
Russia’s health ministry said about 50 people were injured, and Markin said 34 were in hospital, many in a serious condition.
The Interfax news agency said the suspected bomber’s head was found at the site of explosion, which would allow security agencies to quickly identify her.
Female suicide bombers, many of whom were widows or sisters of rebels, have mounted numerous attacks in Russia and are often referred to as “black widows.”
In October, a female suicide bomber blew herself up on a city bus in Volgograd, killing six people and injuring about 30. Officials said she came from the province of Dagestan, the center of an Islamist insurgency that has spread across the region after two separatist wars in Chechnya. She took a Moscow-bound bus from Dagestan, but left it in Volgograd and took a local bus, where she detonated her explosives.
As in yesterday’s blast, her bomb was rigged with shrapnel that caused severe injuries.
Bright orange flash
It wasn’t immediately clear where yesterday’s bomber was from, but officials in Dagestan are checking whether the attacker could come from the region.
Images caught by a security camera facing the station, broadcast by Rossiya 24 television, showed the moment of explosion: a bright orange flash inside the station behind the main gate followed by plumes of smoke.
“Pieces of flesh mixed with shards of glass and smoke billowed from inside, I didn’t even understand at first what was going on,” said local resident Svetlana Zabotko.
Last Friday, three people were killed when a car rigged with explosives blew up on a street in Pyatigorsk, the center of a federal administrative district intended to stabilize the North Caucasus region.
Following yesterday’s explosion, the interior ministry ordered police to beef up patrols at railway stations and other transport facilities across Russia.
Twin bombings on the Moscow subway in March 2010 by female suicide bombers killed 40 people and wounded more than 120. In January 2011, a male suicide bomber struck Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, killing 37 people and injuring more than 180.
Umarov, who had claimed responsibility for the 2010 and 2011 bombings, ordered a halt to attacks on civilian targets during mass street protests against President Putin in the winter of 2011-12. He reversed that order in July, urging his men to “do their utmost to derail” the Sochi Olympics which he described as “satanic dances on the bones of our ancestors.”
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