Russian Blasts Kill 21, Injure More Than 140

Twenty-one people were killed and more than 140 injured when three car bombs exploded on Saturday in volatile southern republics near Russia's rebel Chechnya province.

Officials quickly linked the bombings to Chechen guerrillas and President Vladimir Putin vowed to punish those responsible.

"The toughest measures will be undertaken to find and punish those who ordered and carried out these despicable murders," Putin said in a message of condolences to the relatives of the victims.

Nineteen died and more than 100 were injured when a car bomb ripped through a busy market in the resort town of Mineralnye Vody in the Stavropol region, Putin's envoy Viktor Kazantsev said.

Two police bomb experts died in the neighbouring republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia while trying to remove an explosive device from the petrol tank of a car stopped at a police checkpoint.

Russian television said the car, whose driver has been detained, was apparently heading to the local capital of Cherkessk and suggested that the bomb was due to go off there.

Twelve other people were hurt, two seriously, when a third bomb exploded near a police station in the Stavropol town of Yessentuki shortly after the Mineralnye Vody blast.

PUTIN VOWS TO PUNISH THOSE RESPONSIBLE

In Mineralnye Vody, mangled bodies were strewn across the street, lying where they had fallen in pools of blood besides burst shopping bags.

The twisted remains of the car carrying the device, and the wreckage of other vehicles were scattered across surrounding roads.

Some nearby buildings were badly damaged by the force of the blast, which blew out the windows of surrounding shops and other premises.

Kazantsev, a former commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, told state RTR television that the total number of injured stood at 142 with 40 in a grave condition.

Putin summoned his security chiefs for an emergency meeting, which came on the eve of a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the Siberian city of Irkutsk.

He sent the head of the FSB domestic security service Nikolai Patrushev to the region and decided not to attend a World Cup qualifier soccer match between Russia and Slovenia.

KREMLIN AID POINTS FINGER AT CHECHEN REBELS

Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the influential Security Council that advises Putin, said Chechen rebels had probably launched the attacks in response to Moscow's efforts to restore order in the breakaway region.

"It's obvious that these were terrorist acts," Ivanov said in comments broadcast on state-owned ORT television.

"Much has been said that the predictable and clear policies of the federal centre will make the leadership of the Chechen armed groups turn to the tactic of terrorist attacks, and not just in the territory of Chechnya.

"This is what is going on now," he said.

Putin's chief Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky also linked the explosions to Chechen rebels.

The rebel's website www.kavkaz.org reported the blasts but contained no claim or denial of responsibility.

A number of bombs have exploded in southern Russia. Last December two people died in two explosions in the town of Pyatigorsk in the same region.

The explosions are often linked to unrest in Chechnya, where Russia is trying to scale back its forces after the second bloody crackdown against separatist rebels since 1994. Though federal troops nominally control all the mountainous republic, they fall prey daily to mines, grenade attacks and lightning guerrilla raids.

(www.chinadaily.com.cn)






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