Eighty-six people remained hospitalized, including 57 in critical condition

MOSCOW, May 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The death toll from a bomb attack in Chechnya on a pro-Russian government building rose to 52 Tuesday, May 13, and was expected to move even higher as rescue workers searched the rubble for victims, the Russian emergencies ministry said.

Eighty-six people remained hospitalized, including 57 in critical condition, following the truck bomb Monday in Znamenskoye, northern Chechnya, the ministry said, quoted by Interfax-AVN news agency, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Rescue workers have pulled out alive 23 people from the rubble of the blasted government complex, which housed the local administration, police and FSB intelligence services, it added.

"The great majority of the dead were civilians, including 22 women and children," the head of Chechnya's pro-Russian administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The Russian emergencies ministry earlier said that all victims of the blast - including 10 children and 15 women - had been identified.

China Slams Chechnya “Terrorist Attack
   
In Beijing, China condemned Tuesday the attack in Chechnya and reiterated its support for Moscow's fight against "terrorist and separatist" forces.

"The Chinese side strictly condemns the terrorist incident in Chechnya and expresses sympathy and condolences to the victims of the family of the victims," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue, reported AFP.

"The Chinese side is strictly opposed to any forms of terrorism and as always supports the Russian government in its fight against the terrorist and separatist forces to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country."

Russia Links Riyadh Attacks To Chechnya

In a separate related development, the Russian foreign ministry said Tuesday that the series of deadly suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and Chechnya are "one link in the same chain".

"The blasts in Saudi Arabia, in Chechnya and other places - these are links in the same chain," spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.

"This leaves no doubt that the problem of terrorism in all its forms has not only not disappeared, but that it calls for the further mobilization and concentration of the powers of all countries to fight against this evil," he said.

Overnight, three blasts targeted residential compounds housing Westerners in Riyadh, killing at least three people on the eve of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell, who said the Saudi blasts had "all the earmarks of al-Qaeda," was due to arrive in Moscow late Tuesday.

On Monday morning, bombers drove a truck packed with one ton of explosives into the government building in one of the deadliest single attacks since conflict between Chechen independence seekers and federal troops broke out in October 1999.

Chechen fighters had vowed to step up attacks to disrupt the results of a March 23 referendum that sealed Chechnya's place in the Russian Federation, but a spokesman for Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov denied responsibility for the Znamenskoye blast.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said that his office had drawn up a "circle of suspects" and was carrying out an investigation to identify and arrest those who organized the blast.