GROZNY,
May 14 (IslamOnline.net) - At least 30 people were killed and 40
others injured when two women blew themselves up in the Middle of an
religious festival in the Caucasus republic of Chechnya on Wednesday,
May 14, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.
Another
150 people were wounded in the blast in the eastern village of
Iliskhan-Yurt, of which 50 were in a critical condition, Chechen
emergencies minister Ruslan Avtayev told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
A
young woman in her twenties tried to enter the place where most of the
Chechen officials, including pro-Moscow head of chief administration
Akhmad Kadyrov, were attending the ceremony. She blew herself up when
guards of Kadyrov prevented her from coming in, leaving five of them
dead along with several others, said a Chechen spokesman.
Another
young woman managed to enter the crowded event and blew herself up not
far away from where the place of Kadyrov, his son and father, said
another presidential spokesman. Officials said, however, that Kadyrov
escaped unhurt.
An
aide to the republic's chief administrator, Shamsail Saraliyev, told
Interfax that most of the victims were elderly people attending the
event.
ITAR-TASS
quoted Chechen interior ministry sources as saying that the attack
could have been targeted at Kadyrov.
"We
are still establishing whether there were any other officials among
the wounded or dead," Saraliyev told Interfax.
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Rescue officials examine the bodies of victims of the attack in the village of Ilaskhan-Yurt
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About
15,000 people had turned out for the celebrations in the town to mark
the birthday of the prophet Mohammad.
Reports
on the number of deaths are conflicting, with Prosecutor General
Vladimir Kravchenko revising downward the death toll to eight in the
attack, that came just two days after three bombers drove a truck
loaded with explosives into a government office complex in the north
of the region.
After
Monday's bomb, that left more than 50 people dead, President Vladimir
Putin vowed to stick to his peace plan for the region to end nearly 10
years of armed conflict between Chechen fighters and Russian forces
that has cost thousands of lives.
The
latest attack came just as Putin was preparing for talks with visiting
Secretary of State Colin Powell on the U.S.-led war on terrorism,
which Russia has backed.
"The
bloody acts of terror in Chechnya and Saudi Arabia can bring Moscow
and Washington together," read a headline in the Russian daily Vremya
Novostei. At least ten Americans were killed in triple blasts
of western housing compounds in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday.
