Moscow suicide bomber kills nine

[VeriSexy]

Looks like Moscow is going nuts

- Two planes now
- 400 hostages
- Now this

Woman's attack outside subway injures more than 50

Shadowy group claims responsibility on its website


MICHAEL MAINVILLE
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

MOSCOW?A woman blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station last night, killing at least 9 other people and injuring more than 50.

It was the latest in a series of suicide attacks officials have blamed on rebels fighting for Chechnya's independence from Russia.

The explosion took place just after 8 p.m. in a heavily trafficked area in northern Moscow, between the entrance to the Rizhskaya subway station and a nearby shopping centre.Seven days earlier, almost to the hour, two Russian jetliners crashed within minutes of each other in what officials determined were terrorist bombings.

All 90 people aboard were killed, and the investigation has focused on two Chechen women, believed to have been passengers.

A militant Islamist website published a statement last night claiming responsibility for the subway bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed it caused the jetliner crashes with suicide teams in retribution for Russia's war with Islamic rebels in Chechnya.

The veracity of either of the claims could not be confirmed.

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said the woman in yesterday's bombing tried to enter the subway station but turned away after seeing two police officers stationednear the door.

"She was scared and turned and decided to destroy herself in a crowd of people," Luzhkov said.The woman was carrying a kilogram of explosives and the bomb was packed with bolts and other metal objects, he said."There was a desire to cause maximum damage."

Alexei Borodin, 29, told Associated Press he was walking with his mother when he heard "a very powerful bang. Something flew past my head, I don't know what it was."

"There were people lying in the square," he said. "There were pieces of bodies ... We were walking through pieces of people."

Television reports showed footage of a car engulfed in flames, broken windows and bodies lying on the pavement outside the subway station.

As investigators and police dogs searched the area, ambulances pushed their way through traffic, ferrying the wounded.

Luzhkov said a number of children were among the wounded.

It was the last day of summer holidays before school resumes and the area was busy with families on last-minute shopping trips.

Security, already tight in Moscow following last week's attacks, was notched up further, with extra police patrols dispatched to train stations, subway stations and airports, a police spokespersontold the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Suicide attacks have killed hundreds throughout Russia in the past several years, with many of the bombings carried out by so-called "Black Widows" ? Chechen women who have lost loved ones in Russia's war in the mainly Muslim republic.

This is the second time Moscow's subway system has been a target. In February, 41 people were killed when a bomb exploded on a subway car during morning rush hour.

President Vladimir Putin, making his first extensive comments on last week's jetliner crashes, said the claim of responsibility by the Islamist group proves a point the Kremlin has been pushing for years: that rebel fighters in Chechnya are linked with international terrorist organizations.

Chechens voted Sunday in a presidential election that was part of the Kremlin's plans to bring stability to the breakaway republic. The Kremlin-backed candidate, career police officer Alu Alkhanov, won the election with 74 per cent of the vote.

Human rights groups have accused Moscow of manipulating the vote, with the International Helsinki Federation saying that "minimum international standards for holding free and fair elections do not exist in Chechnya."

With files from Star wire services

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968350060724

[Corleone]

Hard times

[TiGrrPrr]

that would be nine and a 1/2, include the idiot that did it.