MOSCOW,
August 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Traces of explosive
materials were found in the wreckage of one of the two crashed Russian
planes as a militant group claimed responsibility for the downing of
the planes, Russian investigators said Friday, August 27.
"According
to our initial investigation, at least one of the air crashes ... came
as a result of a terror attack," a spokesman for Russia's FSB
intelligence service was quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) as
saying.
Sergei
Ignachenko, said that the Russian investigators had found traces of
Hexogen, a powerful explosive material, in the wreckage of one of two
planes that crashed almost simultaneously Tuesday, August 24.
He
said no traces of explosives were yet found in the wreckage of the
other plane.
A
Russian source, speaking on conditions of anonymity, had earlier said
the crew of one of the downed planes told the airport ground
controllers that a hijacking was in progress.
"We
heard three urgent calls about the hijacking of a plane," the
ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the source as saying.
"This
happened at 10:54 pm on August 24. After that, the plane disappeared
from the radar," the source added.
The
Russian aviation officials have confirmed the news, saying the plane,
a Sibir Airlines Tu-154, sent out a hijack alert just before it
crashed, the BBC News Online reported.
According
to the Russian investigators, a Chechen woman, who was aboard one of
the crashed planes was the prime suspect as no one has yet come to
identify her corpse.
"We
have no information that she was a terrorist," said Transport
Minister Igor Levitin, who heads the government commission
investigating the crashes, adding that investigators wanted to know
why no one had come to claim her body.
Akhmed
Dakayev, the head of Chechnya's interior ministry, for his part, said
another woman, a resident of the Chechen capital Grozny, was on board
of the second plane and that he gave instructions to confirm the
identities of the two women, the Interfax news agency reported.
Responsibility
Claim
Meanwhile,
a group calling itself the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility
for the downing of the two Russian planes, stressing it was the first
in a series of strikes to stop Moscow's fight against the
"Chechen independence-seekers".
"The
Islambouli Brigades declare that our mujahedeen (fighters) have
succeeded in hijacking two Russian planes," said the group in a
statement posted on an Internet website.
"The
mujahedeens have succeeded despite the problems that they encountered
at the beginning. There were five mujahedeens in each plane."
The
group vowed more attacks against the Russian targets for its practices
against the Muslims in Chechnya.
"Russia
is slaughtering of Muslims is still continuing and will not end except
with a bloody war," the statement said.
"The
attacks will be followed by a series of operations aimed to back and
assist our brothers in Chechnya and other regions suffering from
Russia," the statement said.
