Female suicide bomber kills 10 in Moscow

UP to 10 people were killed in a blast outside a busy Moscow underground station last night by a suspected female suicide bomber.

The blast hit in an area between the Rizhskaya subway station in northern Moscow and a nearby shopping complex.

Initial casualty reports varied, but police told Russian television 10 people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

The blast - which some witnesses said consisted of two separate explosions - occurred one week, almost to the hour, after two Russian airliners crashed within minutes of each other. The two prime suspects in last week’s explosions have been identified as Chechens Amant Nagaeva and Satsita Dzhebirkhanova. Both had lost brothers in Chechnya’s hostilities with Russia.

Remains of the two women’s bodies were found in the wreckage of both planes, along with traces of a high explosive favoured by Chechen separatists. Eighty-nine people died in the almost simultaneous explosions.

Russian news agencies cited the Federal Security Service as saying yesterday’s blast was caused by a female suicide bomber.

Islamist group the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility for yesterday’s blast in a website statement. The same group also claimed responsibility for last week’s plane crashes in Russia.

Television reports showed a white car engulfed in flames, shattered windows and bloodied people lying on the asphalt in front of the subway station. A distraught woman fended off a man who reached out to help her. A man lying on his stomach weakly moved his arm as people crowded around him.

Emergency vehicles, their lights flashing, and several dozen police cars clustered at the scene about an hour after the blast. The gutted, flame-blackened car stood near the store, and a mangled body lay under a cover on a nearby stairway.

Alexei Borodin, 29, was out 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.”

He said he saw “about five people” who were too badly hurt to get up. “One young guy tried to get up and couldn’t.”

Anatoly Zuyev, Moscow’s chief prosecutor, told reporters at the scene his office had opened a criminal investigation into suspected terrorism and murder.

Suicide bombings blamed on Chechen rebels and their supporters have hit Moscow and other parts of Russia over the past several years.

In February, 41 people were killed in a rush-hour explosion on the Moscow subway that officials said was a terrorist attack. In December, a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside a hotel near Red Square, killing five people.

On Sunday, Kremlin-backed candidate Alu Alkhanov registered a landslide victory in Chechnya’s presidential election. Mr Alkhanov will replace Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed last May in a bomb attack.