← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Eendracht Maakt Mag
Thread ID: 7146 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-06-05
2003-06-05 15:47 | User Profile
MOSCOW, Russia -- A female suicide bomber has blown up a bus carrying members of Russia's military near Chechnya, killing at least 17 people, air force officials have said.
The attacker, wearing a white coat -- the usual uniform for medical personnel -- approached the bus and blew herself up, officials said Thursday.
The woman, believed to be a 25-year-old Chechen, threw herself under the bus, a witness was reported as saying.
Among the dead were at least eight pilots and aviation personnel.
Six people died at the scene and nine others died in hospital, The Associated Press quoted a regional Interior Ministry official as saying.
At least 15 people were injured, several are in a critical condition.
Investigators are trying to put together what happened, and who the attacker was. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been informed.
Chechens are suspected of being behind the attack.
It is the third fatal incident to have happened in the past month.
A woman suicide hijacker set off an explosives belt around her waist at a religious festival in the Chechen village of Iliskhan-Yurt on May 14, killing 14 people.
While a few days earlier a truck laden with explosives drove into Chechen government buildings in Znamenskoye, the main town in the Nadterechny district, north of Grozny, killing at least 52 people.
The latest attack happened at 7:36 a.m. (0336 BST) on the outskirts of Mozdok air base, a major military installation in Russia's North Ossetia province, which borders Chechnya.
"When the bus slowed down at a railway pass, the terrorist approached it and blew herself up," Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Interfax news agency.
The bus was heading to the air base from a hotel, he added.
-- CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty contributed to this report
[url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/06/05/russia.bus/index.html]http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/06/05....bus/index.html[/url]
2003-06-09 13:44 | User Profile
Last weak I saw a documentary about racist violence in St. Petersburg. The Chechen conflict, as the Caucasus in general is contributing to the rise in nationalist sentiment. I guess Putin wants to keep that low level conflict in order to present himself as a strong Russian leader thus gaining popularity. Furthermore, the Russians have left some Caucasus republics like Aserbaijan and Inguchetia (spelling?). Can the Russians control this area or are they getting their own West Bank conflict. Furthermore there are many other muslim groups living in Russia, the Tatars even have their autonomous region up to the gates of Moscow. Despite the bloodshed that this war causes to the Russian and Chechen nation, the only good thing I can see in that is it will keep a level of racism alive within the Russian population.