Moscow braced for new wave of terror

Fears of a new wave of terrorism in Moscow have been heightened as a woman suicide bomber struck in the heart of the city today, killing five people.

Fears of a new wave of terrorism in Moscow have been heightened as a woman suicide bomber struck in the heart of Moscow today, killing five people.

The bomber's Mercedes car blew up and killed five people near Red Square, injuring nine.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said there was at least one and possibly two female bombers and that they asked a passer-by the way to the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

“Evidently, the bomb went off by accident” near the National Hotel, he said.

“The hotel was not the place where the suicide bombers had planned to stage the explosion.”

Moscow police were cautious about calling the blast a terrorist act, saying initially that it could have been caused by a commercial dispute.

However, as investigators continued to probe the site, they, too, thought that the explosion was a politically motivated terrorist act, said Yevgeny Gildeyev, a police spokesman.

The Federal Security Service – successor to the KGB – and prosecutors were also treating the bombing as terrorism.

Three women, believed to be Chechens, were involved in the suicide bombing of a train in southern Russia last week.

Today’s attack occurred shortly before President Vladimir Putin addressed regional leaders at a Kremlin meeting to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the nation’s constitution.

“The constitution is a foundation for the development of a free market economy, democracy, and the development of the nation as a whole and the preservation of its territorial integrity. The actions of criminals, terrorists, which we have to confront even today, are aimed against all that.”

A preliminary investigation indicated that the blast occurred outside the car, Gildeyev said.

Interfax news agency reported that a headless female body was lying near the site of the blast, near a black briefcase that authorities thought might contain more explosives.

The force of the blast was equal to 11 pounds of TNT and more undetonated explosives was found near the hotel.

A robot inspected the blast site and shortly afterward an explosion could be heard from across the street.

It was unclear where exactly that explosion occurred, but it appeared to have been set off by a water cannon.

The robot then was seen manoeuvring between two bodies. Gildeyev said that all undetonated explosives at the site had been destroyed by early afternoon.

Medical workers on the site said most of the victims appeared to be passers-by.

The blast occurred outside the National Hotel, which sits on a corner diagonally across from a gate leading into Red Square and the Kremlin.

The State Duma is located nearby, across the capital’s most elegant shopping street.

Elections to the Duma took place on Sunday, and Russian authorities had warned that terrorists might try to disrupt the balloting.

Hours after the blast the black Mercedes remained in, its windows blown out and its door ajar, as white curtains billowed in the hotel’s shattered windows.

Beside the car was what appeared to be a body lying on the ground, obstructed by a Christmas tree.

Two witnesses said they had their backs to the blast and heard a huge bang shortly before 11am (8am Irish time).

“We felt a kind of whoosh, heard a bang, and saw smoke,” said one, who was not identified.

Police evacuated Kiev railway station today after finding what they described as a suspicious looking object beneath a train that travels between Moscow and the Moldovan capital, Chisinau.

Russians have been jittery about terrorist acts since a series of explosions in Moscow and southern Russia blamed on Chechen rebels.

Forty-four people were killed when suicide bombers attacked a train in southern Russia last week.

Altogether, close to 300 people have been killed in Russia in bombings and other attacks blamed on Chechens over the past year.

The deadly bombings of the past year – and a Chechen rebel hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theatre in October 2002 – have exposed the inability of Russian authorities to protect against suicide attacks.

A suicide truck-bomb attack last December destroyed the headquarters of Chechnya’s Moscow-backed government and killed 72 people, and another killed 60 at a government compound in the region in May.

Later that month, a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.

In June, a female suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to a military airfield in Mozdok, a major staging point for Russian troops in Chechnya, killing at least 16 people, and the 50 killed in a truck-bomb attack on a military hospital in Mozdok in August included soldiers wounded in Chechnya.