VOLGOGRAD,
Russia - At least 14 people were killed when a bomb blast ripped
through a trolleybus in the second deadly attack in the Russian city of
Volgograd in two days.
Full Article
- Video: Second deadly blast hits Volgograd
- Russia calls for unity in fight against terrorists: Foreign Ministry
- Putin orders security measures after Russian train station blast
- IOC says it has no doubt over security at Sochi Games
VOLGOGRAD, Russia - A bomb ripped a bus apart in Volgograd on Monday,
killing 14 people in the second deadly attack blamed on suicide bombers
in the southern Russian city in 24 hours and raising fears of Islamist
attacks on the Winter Olympics. | Video
By Maria Tsvetkova
VOLGOGRAD, Russia
Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:19am EST
(Reuters) - A bomb ripped apart a bus in Volgograd on Monday, killing 14
people in the second deadly attack blamed on suicide bombers in the
southern Russian city in 24 hours and raising fears of Islamist attacks
on the Winter Olympics.
President Vladimir
Putin, who has staked his prestige on February's Sochi Games and
dismissed threats from Chechen and other Islamist militants in the
nearby North Caucasus, ordered tighter security nationwide after the
morning rush-hour blast.
Investigators
said they believed a male suicide bomber set off the blast, a day after
a similar attack killed at least 17 in the main rail station of a city
that serves as a gateway to the southern wedge of Russian territory
bounded by the Black and Caspian Seas and the Caucasus mountains.
A
Reuters journalist saw the blue and white trolleybus - a bus powered by
overhead electric cables - reduced to a twisted, gutted carcass, its
roof blown off and bodies and debris strewn across the street. Windows
in nearby apartments were blown out by the explosion, which
investigators called a "terrorist act".
"For
the second day, we are dying. It's a nightmare," a woman near the scene
said, her voice trembling as she choked back tears. "What are we
supposed to do, just walk now?"
The
bomb used was packed with "identical" shrapnel to that in the rail
station, indicating they may have been made in the same place and
supporting suspicions the bombings were linked, said Vladimir Markin, a
spokesman for the investigators.
Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai said 14 people were killed and 28 wounded in the bombing on Monday.
"There
was smoke and people were lying in the street," said Olga, who works
nearby. "The driver was thrown a long way. She was alive and moaning ...
Her hands and clothes were bloody,"
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
On
Sunday, investigators initially described the station bomber as a woman
from Dagestan, a hub of Islamist militancy on the Caspian, but they
later said the attacker may have been a man. In October, a woman from
the North Caucasus blew up and killed seven people on a bus in
Volgograd.
The city has
held a place in Russians' sense of national identity since, when known
as Stalingrad, its Soviet defenders held off German invaders to turn the
course of World War Two.
Chechens and other North Caucasus militants have also staged attacks in Moscow and other cities in the past.
SECURITY
Putin,
who has not spoken publicly since the attacks, ordered a federal
committee that coordinates counterterrorism efforts to step up security
nationwide including in Volgograd, and to report to him daily, the
Kremlin said.
The violence raises fears of a concerted campaign before the Olympics, which start on February 7 around Sochi, a resort on the Black Sea, 700 km (450 miles) southwest of Volgograd.
In
an online video posted in July, the Chechen leader of insurgents who
want to carve an Islamic state out of the swathe of mainly Muslim
provinces south of Volgograd, urged militants to use "maximum force" to
prevent the Games from going ahead.
"Terrorists
in Volgograd aim to terrorize others around the world, making them stay
away from the Sochi Olympics," said Dmitry Trenin, an analyst with the
Moscow Carnegie Centre.
The
International Olympic Committee expressed condolences to those affected
by the attacks and said "we have no doubt that the Russian authorities
will be up to the task" of providing security at the Games.
"Unfortunately,
terrorism is a global phenomenon and no region is exempt, which is why
security at the Games is a top priority for the IOC," a spokeswoman for
the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In
power since 2000, Putin secured the Games for Russia and has staked his
reputation on a safe and successful Olympics, even freeing jailed
opponents including oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Pussy Riot
punk band to remove a cause for international criticism at the event.
Putin
was first elected after winning popularity for a war against Chechen
rebels, but attacks by Islamist militants whose insurgency is rooted in
that war have clouded his 14 years in power and now confront him with
his biggest security challenge.
Police
said additional officers were being deployed to railway stations and
airports nationwide after the bombing at the Volgograd rail station on
Sunday, but the attacks raised questions about the effectiveness of
security measures.
The
police force in Volgograd, a city of a million people on the west bank
of the river Volga, has been depleted as some 600 officers were
redeployed to Sochi to tighten security around Olympic sites, a police
officer told Reuters.
More
attacks can be expected before the Olympics and cities in southern
Russia where the Games are not being held are easier targets than Sochi,
said Alexei Filatov, a prominent former member of Russia's elite
anti-terrorism force, Alfa.
"The
threat is greatest now because it is when terrorists can make the
biggest impression," he said. "The security measures were beefed up long
ago around Sochi, so terrorists will strike instead in these nearby
cities like Volgograd."
TENSIONS
The
attacks also threatened to fuel ethnic tension, which has increased
with an influx of migrant laborers from the impoverished Caucasus and
Muslim Central Asian nations to cities around Russia, including
Volgograd, in recent years.
"They
need to be chased out of here. It has become a transit junction - there
are all these non-Russians, both good and bad," said Olga, a saleswoman
at a store near the mangled bus. "We've plenty bandits of our own. Why
do we need others?"
Police were checking documents of people in Volgograd, with a focus on migrants, said Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
Volgograd
will be one of the venues for the 2018 soccer World Cup, another
high-profile sports event Putin has helped Russia win the right to
stage, and which will bring thousands of foreign fans to cities around
Russia.
The first
Olympics in Russia since the 1980 summer Games in Moscow, Sochi is a
chance for Putin to show how the country has changed since the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991.
He
has faced criticism in the West and from Russian activists who say he
has smothered dissent and encouraged discrimination against homosexuals
since starting a third term as president in 2012.
Sunday's
attack was the deadliest to strike the ethnic Russian heartlands since
January 2011, when a male suicide bomber from the North Caucasus killed
37 people in the arrivals hall of a busy Moscow airport.
(Additional
reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing
by John Stonestreet, Will Waterman and Alastair Macdonald)
COPY http://www.reuters.com/
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