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At Least 21 Killed In Bomb Attacks in Russia
MOSCOW, March 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least 21 people were killed and more than 90 wounded Saturday when three bombs exploded almost simultaneously in Russia's troubled north Caucasus region, near the rebel republic of Chechnya, Russian television reported, quoting police sources.
Nineteen people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a local market in Mineralnye Vody, just after 10:00 am (0700 GMT), according to reports by police on the scene.
Earlier Sergei Mikhailov of the Russian interior ministry told Moscow Echo radio that 18 people had died and 81 were injured.
It was one of the heaviest death tolls from a bomb attack in Russia since the Kremlin launched its self-styled "anti-terrorist" campaign in the breakaway Chechen republic 18 months ago.
Russian television channels broadcast pictures of burnt-out cars and victims covered in blood at the site of the bombing.
A second car bomb planted near a highway police checkpoint in Yesentuky, 30 kilometers (18 miles) southwest of Mineralnye Vody, blew up and wounded 12 people, two of them seriously, Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky's office said.
Meanwhile, two police were killed in the neighboring republic of Karachayevo-Cherkesya after a third bomb exploded in a car while the two were trying to clear the area.
CNN reports that there were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks, which happened within minutes of each other, but senior Kremlin officials were quick to point the finger at Chechen separatists.
Yastrzhembsky said the style of the attacks bore all the hallmarks of previous bombings by separatists who have been waging a war against Russian forces since Moscow sent troops back into Chechnya in October 1, 1999.
"It is hard at the moment to say who carried out this terror attack, but its character is very like the trademark of the Chechen bandits," Yastrzhembsky said on Echo radio.
However, a spokesman for Chechen separatist president Aslan Maskhadov categorically denied any involvement by separatists in the attacks.
The Chechen side "had nothing to do with these events. The Stavropol region is part of the Russian Federation and if they cannot keep order there, what chance do they have in Chechnya?" he told AFP.
President Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolence to the victims' families, regretting that, "once more blood has been spilled and civilians have become the victims of cruel terrorist acts."
Putin promised that, "Those who planned and carried out these despicable murders will be found and punished."
The Russian leader responded immediately by dispatching the head of the Russian security service FSB to the Stavropol region to launch an inquiry into the wave of attacks.
FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, whom Putin in January put in charge of Russian operations in Chechnya, flew to the North Caucasus to personally head the investigation.
Putin also dispatched his special representative for the northern Caucasus, General Viktor Kazantsev, to the Stavropol region, which borders the predominantly Islamic republic of Chechnya.
Kazantsev, who said he would be "looking into the situation right at the scene," told Interfax he could see "a Wahhabite bandit trace" in Saturday's attacks.
The blasts were part of "the spring intensification of Chechen guerrilla activities," the news agency quoted unnamed FSB sources as saying.
Russian television broadcast photo-fit images of two people suspected of involvement with the bombings, one of them for planning the Mineralnye Vody bombing and the other - a caucasian male in his mid 20s - in connection with the Yesentuky attack.
More than 290 people were killed in a wave of bombings in August and September 1999 across the country that Russia attributed to Chechen separatists and later used to justify the military intervention.
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