37 dead, 65 wounded in metro explosions-latest report

37 dead, 65 wounded in metro explosions-latest report


29.03.2010, 13.48


MOSCOW, March 29 (Itar-Tass) - The loss of life as a result of the acts of terrorism in the Moscow metro has reached 37, Irina Adrianova, head of the information department of the Ministry for Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) reported.

“At present the overall number of the dead as a result of the explosions at the Park Kultury and Lubyanka metro stations is 37, and another 65 were wounded,” she continued.

Different sources give different figures of the dead and wounded so far. A representative of the Federal Security Service (FSB) said at a meeting chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday that 36 people had died and 37 had been wounded. At the same time, Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said a total number of the wounded was 54.

The Ministry of Health and Social Development reported that 64 people had been wounded by the explosions. Eight people are in an extremely grave condition.


http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14966415



March 30 to be day of mourning in Moscow

29.03.2010, 15.01


MOSCOW, March 29 (Itar-Tass) - March 30 will be a day of mourning in Moscow, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin by the video communication line from the EMERCOM crisis centre.

“A day of mourning will be held in Moscow tomorrow,” he said.

According to Luzhkov, the first thing to do was to prevent panic. “This was done. Many vehicles of the special services were concentrated around the metro stations. We settled the situation there,” Luzhkov said. He added that some 130 buses had been sent to the streets of the city “for helping the people who could not go by the metro.”

The national flags will be flying half-mast in Moscow on Tuesday. Cultural institutions, TV and radio broadcasting companies were recommended to cancel entertainment programmes and activities.

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14966948&PageNum=0



Hunt for 'Black Widow' terror gang after female suicide bombers kill at least 38 in bomb attacks on Moscow trains

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 7:04 PM on 29th March 2010


Two bombs, 40mins apart, detonated during morning rush hour
At least 37 people dead, 65 injured

No group claims responsibility so far. Rouble falls.

Police in Moscow were tonight searching for female accomplices of two women suicide bombers who killed at least 37 people and injured 65 by targeting two packed tube trains during the busy rush hour.

Analysis of CCTV footage inside the Red Arrow underground trains of the two suicide bombers has revealed they were accompanied by two other women.

Their faces were not destroyed in the explosion, increasing the chance of successfully identifying them, and video from other cameras in Moscow Metro stations has also helped identify the faces of the two women who accompanied them and a man.

President Dmitry Medvedev declared Russia would act 'without compromise' to root out terrorists as he ordered airports to be put on alert and security to be stepped up throughout the country.

The two bombs are the worst attack on the Russian capital for six years and no group has yet claimed responsibility.

But suspicion has fallen on Muslim militants from the North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is fighting a growing Islamist insurgency spreading from Chechnya to neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia's Federal Security Service, said the terrorists were likely to have been 'black widows', Muslim women radicalised by the situation in the North Caucasus.

'Body parts belonging to two female suicide bombers were found and, according to initial data, these persons are linked to the north Caucasus,' he said.

Analysts said the involvement of women was similar to the 'black widows' in Checnya - women who had lost brothers or husbands to Russian forces in the Chechen conflict.

News reports have linked the women, also known as Shahidka, to embattled northern Caucuses and the Shahidka movement that first emerged in 2000.

The term is a feminine derivative of shahid, Arabic for 'witness' or 'martyr'.
They are generally young, often teenagers, and are dressed from head to toe in black mourning clothes.

Police are tonight expected to publish CCTV images of the suicide bombers, along with two women of 'Slav appearance' who accompanied them.

Witnesses spoke of panic at the two underground stations this morning after the blasts as people fell over each other in dense smoke and dust, trying to escape.
In scenes that will have been chillingly familiar to Londoners after the July 7 bombings in 2005, bloodied and injured passengers emerged onto the streets looking bewildered.

The first explosion tore through the second carriage of a metro train just before 8am as it stood at the Lubyanka station, close to the headquarters of Russia's main domestic security service FSB. It killed at least 23 people.

About 40 minutes later, another blast in the second carriage of a train waiting at the Park Kultury metro station, opposite Gorky Park, killed 12 to 14 more people.
Both bombers wore explosive belts packed with bolts and iron rods to maximise casualties.

'It was very scary. I saw a dead body,' said Valentin Popov, a 19-year-old student travelling on a train to the Park Kultury station.

'Everyone was screaming. There was a stampede at the doors. I saw one woman holding a child and pleading with people to let her through, but it was impossible.'

A commuter said: 'I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations reverberate through my body.'

The female suicide bombers are believed to have boarded the train at Yugo-Zapadnaya station in southwest Moscow.

One passenger told the RIA news agency: 'I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations reverberate through my body.

'People were yelling like hell. There was a lot of smoke and in about two minutes everything was covered in smoke.'

Another called Alexei added: 'I was moving up on the escalator when I heard a loud bang, a blast. A door near the passage way arched, was ripped out and a cloud of dust came down on the escalator.

'People started running, panicking, falling on each other,' he said.

Some of the injured were airlifted to emergency hospitals in helicopters. Dozens of commuters were helped from each station to waiting ambulances.

Surveillance camera footage posted on the internet showed several motionless bodies lying on the floor or slumped against the wall in Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers crouched over victims, trying to treat them.

The female suicide bombers are believed to have boarded the train at Yugo-Zapadnaya station in southwest Moscow.

One passenger told the RIA news agency: 'I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations reverberate through my body.

'People were yelling like hell. There was a lot of smoke and in about two minutes everything was covered in smoke.'

Another called Alexei added: 'I was moving up on the escalator when I heard a loud bang, a blast. A door near the passage way arched, was ripped out and a cloud of dust came down on the escalator.

'People started running, panicking, falling on each other,' he said.

Some of the injured were airlifted to emergency hospitals in helicopters. Dozens of commuters were helped from each station to waiting ambulances.

Surveillance camera footage posted on the internet showed several motionless bodies lying on the floor or slumped against the wall in Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers crouched over victims, trying to treat them.

The Russian rouble fell to 34.25 from 34.13 against the central bank's euro-dollar basket, on concern the blasts could indicate the start of a bombing campaign against Russian cities.

Russian equity markets were little changed, with the rouble denominated MICEX index up 0.04 percent.

Medvedev ordered officials to fight terrorism 'without hesitation, to the end'.
In a nod to accusations of Russian troops acting with brutality against civilians in Chechnya, he said human rights must be respected during police operations.
The President will make a statement to the nation later today, according to a Kremlin source.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cut short a visit to Siberia and vowed that everything would be done to catch the killers.

He said: 'A crime that is terrible in its consequences and heinous in its manner has been committed.

'I am confident that law enforcement bodies will spare no effort to track down and punish the criminals. Terrorists will be destroyed.'

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the bombings as did European Union leaders.

'The American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism and heinous terrorist attacks that demonstrate such disregard for human life, and we condemn these outrageous acts,' Obama said.

Gordon Brown was 'appalled' by the attacks and has sent a message of 'condolence and support' to Medvedev, Downing Street said.

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.

Chechen separatists were blamed for that attack and suspicions are likely to focus on the North Caucasus where rebel leader Doku Umarov, who is fighting for an Islamic emirate embracing the whole region, vowed on Feb 15 to take the war to Russian cities.

'Blood will no longer be limited to our (Caucasus) cities and towns. The war is coming to their cities,' the Chechen rebel leader said in an interview on the unofficial Islamist website.

The Chechen rebellion began in the 1990s as a largely ethnic nationalist movement, fired by a sense of injustice over the transportation of Chechens to Central Asia, with enormous loss of life, by dictator Josef Stalin.

In recent years, Russian officials say Islamic militants from outside Russia have joined the campaign lending it a new intensity.

Russian leaders had declared victory in their battle with Chechen separatists who fought two wars with Moscow.

But while violence subsided in Chechnya, it has spread and intensified in neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia, where clan rivalries overlap with criminal gangs and Islamist militants.

Vladimir Putin cemented his power in 1999 in launching an ultimately successful war to overthrow a separatist government lodged in the Chechen capital Grozny.

Russian leaders fear the loss of this region endangering energy transit routes could destabilise other areas in a country spanning 11 time zones.

The Moscow subway system is one of the world's busiest, carrying around seven million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

The blasts practically paralysed movement on the city centre's main roads, as emergency vehicles sped to the stations.

Helicopters hovered overhead the Park Kultury station area, which is next to the city's renowned Gorky Park.

Passengers, many of them in tears, streamed out of the station, one man exclaiming over and over: 'This is how we live!'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1261502/Female-suicide-bombers-Moscow-kill-30-attacks-tube-trains.html



Patriarch Kirill prays by name for each of those killed and injured by Moscow tube terrorist acts

Moscow, March 29, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will pray for each person killed or injured in the Moscow tube.

"His Holiness the Patriarch asked to give him the list of all killed and suffered so that he could personally pray for each person," head of the Russian Church Department for Church Charities and Social Service Archpriest Arkady Shatov told Interfax-Religion correspondent.

Earlier Patriarch Kirill instructed priests to visit the victims in hospitals.


http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7094




Patriarch Kirill orders priests to visit victims of terrorist acts in Moscow tube in hospitals

Moscow, March 29, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on Monday urged Russians to show decisiveness in order to stop the terrorists and respond to terrorist acts in Moscow tube.

"Unfortunately, it is not the first terrorist act committed in Russia in the recent months. We see it quite clearly that the danger is lurking around each of us every minute," he said in the statement spread by his press service.

However, the Primate stressed that "we should respond to this danger not with fear, not with panics, not with exasperation."

"Let us respond with unity of our people, with our firm will to stop terrorists and those who back them up, finance or justify. God's punishment will find them. I believe as well as human justice," the statement further reads.

Patriarch Kirill prays for repose of those killed, consolation of their relatives, soonest recovery of the injured and asks the Lord "to help rescuers, doctors and all those who work to overcome consequences of the catastrophe."

The Church Primate instructed clerics to visit the victims in hospitals.


http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7088