[Political] Bombing in Moscow
Dec. 9th, 2003 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravencallscrowsNote emphasis below. This is comparable to having terrorists in the U.S. attempting to blow up the Capitol and/or members of Congress (not that perhaps we might not be better off without certain elected officials, but i digress). Other sources (namely Pravda.ru and US wire reports) identify the bombers as Chechens, although this report from ITAR-TASS does not include that information.
MOSCOW, Dec 9 (Prime-Tass) -- The number of people killed in a suspected suicide bombing in Moscow Tuesday reached six after police found fragments of another victim’s body, ITAR-TASS reported.
Police officials said three of those killed were the supposed female terrorists.
The blast that occurred in the very center of the Russian capital around 11 a.m. Moscow time also left 13 people wounded, five of them admitted to intensive care in Moscow’s hospitals in serious a condition.
Police said most people wounded in the blast were around 20 years of age, many of them students of the Moscow State University, whose Journalism and Psychology departments are about 200 meters from the site. Reportedly, one of the injured students was a Chinese female but the information has not so far been confirmed by the Chinese embassy.
Some experts said the bomb on one of the terrorists might have gone off by accident, killing the two others. The women had at least one more explosive device with them, which did not detonate in the explosion thus avoiding more damage, and, possibly, deaths.
Media reports also suggested the terrorists’ target was the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, which is just across the street from the fashionable National Hotel, near which the bomb went off.
The reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying the supposed terrorists were asking the way to the Duma moments before the explosion occurred.
Police experts said the explosive device, equivalent to five kilos of TNT, was similar to one used in a suicide bomb attack at an open-air rock festival in Moscow in July. In both cases the so-called shahid belts, explosives hidden on a suicide bomber’s torso, were stuffed with small metal balls to increase the impact of the explosion.
Tuesday’s explosion, which was heard in the Moscow Mayor’s Office, further up Tverskaya Street and in the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) headquarters on Lubyanka Square, left holes on the hotel building up to the fourth floor. The damage to the hotel is preliminarily estimated at U.S. $500,000.
The explosion must have also been heard across the street in the Kremlin, where Russian President Vladimir Putin was meeting with the leaders of Russian regional legislatures.
Speaking to the gathering, dedicated to Russian Constitution Day to be celebrated this coming Friday, Putin condemned the bombing as aimed at undermining the principles of the Russian constitution and the development of democracy, the market economy and the territorial integrity of the country.
Tuesday’s bombing occurred just days after a suicide bombing in Russia’s southern Stavropol Region, which killed over 40 people on a commuter train.
MOSCOW, Dec 9 (Prime-Tass) -- The number of people killed in a suspected suicide bombing in Moscow Tuesday reached six after police found fragments of another victim’s body, ITAR-TASS reported.
Police officials said three of those killed were the supposed female terrorists.
The blast that occurred in the very center of the Russian capital around 11 a.m. Moscow time also left 13 people wounded, five of them admitted to intensive care in Moscow’s hospitals in serious a condition.
Police said most people wounded in the blast were around 20 years of age, many of them students of the Moscow State University, whose Journalism and Psychology departments are about 200 meters from the site. Reportedly, one of the injured students was a Chinese female but the information has not so far been confirmed by the Chinese embassy.
Some experts said the bomb on one of the terrorists might have gone off by accident, killing the two others. The women had at least one more explosive device with them, which did not detonate in the explosion thus avoiding more damage, and, possibly, deaths.
Media reports also suggested the terrorists’ target was the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, which is just across the street from the fashionable National Hotel, near which the bomb went off.
The reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying the supposed terrorists were asking the way to the Duma moments before the explosion occurred.
Police experts said the explosive device, equivalent to five kilos of TNT, was similar to one used in a suicide bomb attack at an open-air rock festival in Moscow in July. In both cases the so-called shahid belts, explosives hidden on a suicide bomber’s torso, were stuffed with small metal balls to increase the impact of the explosion.
Tuesday’s explosion, which was heard in the Moscow Mayor’s Office, further up Tverskaya Street and in the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) headquarters on Lubyanka Square, left holes on the hotel building up to the fourth floor. The damage to the hotel is preliminarily estimated at U.S. $500,000.
The explosion must have also been heard across the street in the Kremlin, where Russian President Vladimir Putin was meeting with the leaders of Russian regional legislatures.
Speaking to the gathering, dedicated to Russian Constitution Day to be celebrated this coming Friday, Putin condemned the bombing as aimed at undermining the principles of the Russian constitution and the development of democracy, the market economy and the territorial integrity of the country.
Tuesday’s bombing occurred just days after a suicide bombing in Russia’s southern Stavropol Region, which killed over 40 people on a commuter train.
