MOSCOW, September 5 (IslamOnline.net) - The recent waves of separate blasts hitting Russia has provoked cases of backlash against Muslims in the country, with fear gripping Moscow of further attacks.

Moving down metro stations and main squares of Moscow, scenes of racial slurs could be seen there, along with a rising number of security scare complaints also recoded.

"From September 1 to September 4, over 30 racial harassment incidents - mostly against Muslims - were recorded," a press officer of Moscow Police Service told IslamOnline.net Sunday, September 5.

Armed men and women broke into a school in northern Ossetia Wednesday, September 1. The ensuing hostage crisis and the forced entry of Russian forces left around 400 people dead and hundreds injured, mostly children after a three-day siege.

Although no group claimed the school attack, blame was implicitly taken to fighters from Chechnya - a predominantly Muslim republic - seeking separation from Russia.

The police officer, who asked not to be named, said most harassment incidents during the school siege ordeal were against Muslim girls wearing hijab.

"The attackers had shouted names and racial salvos, and even sometimes beaten, those girls and Muslims of other Caucasian nationalities, leaving some of them slightly injured," said the Moscow Police press officer.

At one of the metro stations in Moscow, where an explosion left dozens of people dead a few days earlier, all ayes drifted with suspicion towards one hijab-clad passenger. They feared she might be a Chechen bomber ready to blow herself up.

The school hostage ordeal began one day after at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured, when what Russian officials claim a female bomber blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station.

For a Muslim population of 23 million, representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million in Russia according to a 2003 census, stigmatization is one of their concerns.

"We have to get rid of them before they take us out," read one hand-written sticker in another underground station in the Russian capital. A crescent painting appears beside the sentence - in a clear reference to Muslims.

No wonder passengers accuse Chechen separatists of all recent blasts ripping through the country.

"Chechens are like cockroaches, who would succeed to overcome the siege imposed on North Ossetia’s borders," one passenger was heard by this correspondent as saying, after reports that more than 13 of the hostage takers are at large.

Another accompanying passenger nodded in a confident approval.

Cases of fear, along with anti-Muslim sentiments went even further to show itself outside the Russian borders.

According to IOL correspondent, Russian passengers about to board a charter plane from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh Thursday, September 2, refused to board the plane when they spotted a bearded Russian Muslim, reading from the Noble Qur'an, about to join them.

The passengers expressed their fear the man could be on his way to blow up the plane and Egyptian security officials spent hours trying to convince the fearful Russians the plane was thoroughly checked, like all passengers, and that it was perfectly safe to board the plane.

The efforts of the Egyptian security officials paid off at last and all passengers, including the bearded Russian Muslim, made it back home safe.

Some warned that such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies could hope for.

In 1999, some 80,000 Russian troops poured into the Caucasus republic of Chechnya in what Moscow called a lightning-strike “anti-terror operation” but which has since degenerated into a grinding war with Chechen fighters.

The current conflict, the second war between Russia and Chechen fighters in a decade, has left 5,000 Russian soldiers dead -- 12,000 according to rights groups -- and killed thousands of civilians.

It has also driven tens of thousands of Chechens into exile within Russia and abroad.