21 killed in bomb explosion

Three simultaneous car bomb blasts killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 100 others today in southern Russia near the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Nineteen people were killed and 85 were seriously wounded when a bomb exploded near the entrance of a farmers’ market in the city of Mineralnye Vody, said Colonel Alexander Lemeshev, the duty officer for the Emergency Situations Ministry in the northern Caucasus.

He said another 16 people were slightly injured in the blast, caused by a bomb placed in a car near the market and detonated by remote control.

A simultaneous blast in the nearby town of Yessentuki in the Stavropol region injured 13 people, police officials said.

Two Interior Ministry servicemen were killed in a third car bomb explosion in the Karachayevo-Cherkessia region.

Mineralnye Vody, Yessentuki and Karachayevo-Cherkessia are all within 100 miles northwest of Chechnya.

Presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said there were serious reasons to suspect that Chechen rebel leaders were behind the blasts.

’’Gunmen always talk about the necessity to commit acts of terror to keep the Russian population in tension, and even this alone gives grounds to consider separatists involved in today’s acts of terror,’’ Yastrzhembsky said.

Large-scale fighting in Chechnya ended months ago, but rebels continue to inflict casualties on Russian forces by attacking their positions at night, ambushing their convoys in broad daylight and seeding the province with land mines.

Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya at the end of the previous, 1994-96 war.

The troops returned in 1999 after rebels invaded a neighbouring Russian region and after apartment building bombings, blamed on rebels, killed 300 people in Moscow and other cities.

Today the two Interior Ministry inspectors were killed when explosives found in a car on a road detonated, a ministry spokesman said.

The explosion in Yessentuki came when a bomb placed inside a car was detonated near the entrance to a highway police department, an Interior Ministry official said.

Police in Stavropol, the regional capital, said there were similarities in today’s explosions, the Interfax news agency reported. In all three, Zhiguli cars were stuffed with explosives and they were activated within minutes of each other at about 10am, the officials said.

President Vladimir Putin was informed of the explosions during his regular Saturday meeting with top officials in the Kremlin, a spokesman for Yastrzhembsky said. The spokesman said one person had been detained in connection with the Karachayevo-Cherkessia blast.

Putin ordered Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and Deputy Interior Minister to fly to the Stavropol region to open an investigation into the explosions, Yastrzhembsky told Interfax.

Police in Moscow were put on alert, Interfax reported. Traffic patrols at entrances to the city have been beefed up and officers were instructed to check all trucks and cars from other regions for explosives, the report said.