RUSSIA FILE: Footage of previous bomb attacks on Moscow transport points

Record ID: 352879

  • Title: RUSSIA FILE: Footage of previous bomb attacks on Moscow transport points
  • Date: 30th March 2010
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF A WOUNDED MAN TREATED BY PARAMEDICS CLOSEUP OF BLOOD ON ARM SEVERELY INJURED WOMAN IN AMBULANCE, SHAKING IN SHOCK
  • Embargoed: 14th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA4PE9MNO4QDF1WVNHP52MLZEZ4
  • Story Text: Two female suicide bombers killed at least 38 people on packed Moscow metro trains during rush hour on Monday (March 29), stirring fears of a broader campaign in Russia's heartland by Islamists from the North Caucasus.
    Witnesses described panic at two central Moscow stations after the blasts, with commuters falling over each other in dense smoke and dust as they tried to escape the worst attack on the Russian capital in six years.
    Sixty-four others were injured, many gravely, and officials said the death toll could rise. Russia's top security official said the bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods.
    The current death toll makes it the worst attack on Moscow since February 2004, when a suicide bombing killed at least 39 people and wounded more than 100 on a metro train.
    The 2004 bomb detonated as the train moved between the Avtozovodskaya and Paveletskaya stations, not far from the Moscow centre.
    On August 8, 2000, a powerful explosive device ripped through the underpass in central Moscow under well-known Pushkin Square leading to the metro station Pushkinskaya, at the height of the tourist season.
    Thirteen people were killed and more than 110 injured by that blast.
    Chechen separatists were suspected of carrying out both attacks.
    Rebel leader Doku Umarov, who is fighting for an Islamic emirate embracing the whole region, vowed last month to take the war to Russian cities.
    No group immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov said those responsible had links to the North Caucasus, a heavily Muslim region plagued by insurgency whose leaders have threatened to attack cities and energy pipelines elsewhere in Russia.
    Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who cemented his power in 1999 by launching a war to crush Chechen separatism, broke off a trip to Siberia, declaring "terrorists will be destroyed".
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