Moscow suicide bomber long disowned by family
Source: Agencies |
April 5, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
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WHEN a 16-year-old girl married a militant Islamist separatist entangled in a long-running and bloody struggle against Russian government, her relatives say they disowned her immediately.
They knew their Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, still just a schoolgirl, could easily be killed, but they never expected her to be dispatched to Moscow as a suicide bomber to blow herself up on a subway train.
Abdurakhmanova, whose husband was killed by government forces in December, and another young widow have been accused of carrying out last week's twin suicide bombings, which killed 40 people and injured 90.
Both women were from the North Caucasus, a patchwork of predominantly Muslim provinces and home to a fierce Islamic insurgency.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the subway attacks, saying they were retaliation for the deaths of four garlic-picking villagers who were slain on February 11.
Abdurakhmanova grew up in Kostek, a poor rural village in Dagestan.
"We turned our back on her when she married that one about two years ago," said a 20-year-old man who claimed to be Abdurakhmanova's cousin. "We didn't have anything to do with Dzhanet and we never wanted to after her marriage."
On Friday, a Russian newspaper published a photo of the doe-eyed teenager, partly veiled, in the embrace of a bearded man, both grasping handguns.
The report said Abdurakhmanova met her husband, Umalat Magomedov, in an Internet chat and that he then set up a meeting and drove her away by force when she was still 16.
After her husband's death, Abdurakhmanova may have fallen under the influence of Islamists, who try to persuade widows and other relatives to sacrifice their lives to avenge their slain husbands, sons and brothers.
The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets said a burned shred of a letter in Arabic found on Abdurakhmanova's body promised a "meeting in heaven."
They knew their Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, still just a schoolgirl, could easily be killed, but they never expected her to be dispatched to Moscow as a suicide bomber to blow herself up on a subway train.
Abdurakhmanova, whose husband was killed by government forces in December, and another young widow have been accused of carrying out last week's twin suicide bombings, which killed 40 people and injured 90.
Both women were from the North Caucasus, a patchwork of predominantly Muslim provinces and home to a fierce Islamic insurgency.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the subway attacks, saying they were retaliation for the deaths of four garlic-picking villagers who were slain on February 11.
Abdurakhmanova grew up in Kostek, a poor rural village in Dagestan.
"We turned our back on her when she married that one about two years ago," said a 20-year-old man who claimed to be Abdurakhmanova's cousin. "We didn't have anything to do with Dzhanet and we never wanted to after her marriage."
On Friday, a Russian newspaper published a photo of the doe-eyed teenager, partly veiled, in the embrace of a bearded man, both grasping handguns.
The report said Abdurakhmanova met her husband, Umalat Magomedov, in an Internet chat and that he then set up a meeting and drove her away by force when she was still 16.
After her husband's death, Abdurakhmanova may have fallen under the influence of Islamists, who try to persuade widows and other relatives to sacrifice their lives to avenge their slain husbands, sons and brothers.
The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets said a burned shred of a letter in Arabic found on Abdurakhmanova's body promised a "meeting in heaven."
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