- At least 20 people were killed and 30 seriously injured
when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Moscow rock concert,
ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Moscow police as saying.
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- The two women blew themselves up at a ticket booth at
the entrance to the outdoor concert at Tushino airfield in northwestern
Moscow after police prevented them from entering the site, Saturday, ITAR-TASS
said.
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- A third blast went off at a nearby market, the FSB security
services told Russian news agencies.
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- Interfax quoted police as saying the death toll stood
at 17, with 22 people hospitalized in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
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- The bombs were packed with at least 500 grams (18 ounces)
of explosives, police said.
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- The concert organizers told ITAR-TASS around 40,000 people
were attending the annual event.
-
- President Vladimir Putin was immediately informed of
the blasts and the state prosecutor's office launched an investigation
into "terrorism," Interfax said.
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- Female suicide bombers carried out a series of kamikaze
attacks that killed nearly 100 people in the breakaway republic of Chechnya
in May.
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- Most of the Chechens who held some 800 people hostage
in a Moscow theatre for three days in October were also women.
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- That attack brought the war in Chechnya to the heart
of Russian capital for the first time since a series of fatal apartment
blasts in August 1999 that prompted Putin to send federal troops back into
the breakaway republic.
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- Russian federal troops have been fighting separatist
rebels in the mainly Muslim republic ever since.
-
- Daily battles and attacks continue despite Putin's declaration
that the war has ended as a result of a peace plan and a constitutional
referendum he launched in March.
-
- Rebels appear to be following through on a pledge to
step up attacks to disrupt the outcome of that referendum, in which Chechens
approved a decision that their republic would remain within the Russian
Federation.
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