- MOSCOW (AFP) -- A suspected
suicide bomb attack in the Moscow subway killed at least 39 people and
injured more than 120, five weeks before President Vladimir Putin stands
for re-election.
-
- Witnesses spoke of carnage after a bomb ripped through
a crowded subway car during morning rush hour near central Moscow as residents
headed to work, emergency officials said Friday.
-
- In a first reaction to the attack, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said that "terrorism is the plague of the 21st century"
as suspicion for the bombing focused on rebels from war-torn Chechnya,
who have stepped up attacks in Russia over the past year.
-
- There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
bombing which occurred at 8:40 am (0540 GMT).
-
- Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yudin, quoted by the
Interfax news agency, said that at least 39 people had died and 122 people,
including one child, were hospitalized following the blast.
-
- Meanwhile the Moscow's deputy prosecutor, Vladimir Yudin,
said that "at least 35 people died in the carriage. But it is premature
to speak about a final figure because we have found lots of body parts."
-
- Some reports said the death toll could reach as high
as 50.
-
- Havoc reigned outside the Avtozavodskaya station, the
closest to the train that ground to a halt in the underground tunnel after
the blast, as distraught parents searched for their children.
-
- "My daughter is in there!" a woman in her 50s,
shouted over and over as tears streamed down her face.
-
- "We saw them carrying bodies and injured covered
in blood," said Lena, who works in a food shop 100 meters (yards)
from the station.
-
- A blood-splattered man came into her shop and asked for
a shot of vodka shortly after the attack, saying he had been in one of
the cars.
-
- "He told us that he saw arms, legs scattered around
the carriage," Lena said. "He said it was a bloody carnage."
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- Anna Kolmikova, 51, who had also been inside one of the
cars, sobbed uncontrollably as she explained that "the train was packed."
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- "There was an explosion and all of a sudden a lot
of smoke," she said. The train car doors opened and people began to
file out into the tunnel and walk toward the station.
-
- "We saw bodies and charred metal pieces in there,"
she said.
-
- "There is no doubt that it was a terrorist act,"
said Kirill Mazulin, a spokesman for the Moscow city police.
-
- "The bomb was probably on a kamikaze terrorist"
and had the yield of one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of TNT, Mazulin said. Shantsev
later said the bomb contained five kilograms of TNT.
-
- Officials told ITAR-TASS that police were looking for
a man with "Caucasian" features who, accompanied by two women,
had come up to an employee at the Avtozavodskaya station shortly before
the blast, said "you'll have a party on your hands" and swore.
-
- The blast triggered a fire and smoke poured out of the
station after the attack. More than 100 ambulances and fire trucks rushed
to site. Some 700 people were subsequently evacuated from the metro.
-
- The bombing occurred as the train was heading toward
the center of the Russian capital between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya
stations in southeast Moscow.
-
- Suspicions for the blast immediately centered on Chechen
rebels, who have been fighting Russian troops in the Caucasus republic
for more than four years.
-
- The last attack blamed on Chechen rebels killed six people
and the female suicide bomber on December 9 outside the National Hotel
in downtown Moscow, a stone's throw from the Kremlin.
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- "It's all Chechnya, it's all Chechnya!" shouted
Lena, the shop worker outside the train station. "We hate them, let's
kill them all!"
-
- Security measures were tightened throughout the Moscow
metro, which has more than 160 stations in the megalopolis of some 10 million
people, and similar measure were taken in Russia's second city of Saint
Petersburg, officials said.
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- Russians railed against the authorities for allowing
the attack occur.
-
- "Once more (the authorities) have not ensured security,"
56-year-old Vyacheslav said outside the station as he looked for his wife.
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- "I feel grief for our country that cannot defend
its citizens," said Kolmikova.
-
- "Who is going to protect us? How are you going to
save our children?" shouted Lena at a man wearing an FSB jacket outside
the station.
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- Friday's blast comes a little more than a month before
presidential elections in Russia, during which Putin, who launched the
latest Chechen war, is widely expected to be reelected.
-
- At a Kremlin meeting with visiting Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev, Putin accepted his guest's condolences over the attack and denounced
"terrorism," but did not specifically mention the morning blast
just a few miles away.
-
- "If we unite... our efforts in the Caucasus as a
whole and also our international efforts, we will be successful in this
fight."
-
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