MOSCOW - Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people, officials said.

Witnesses described panic at two stations, with commuters falling over each other in dense smoke and dust as they tried to escape the worst attack on the Russian capital in six years.

The head of Russia’s main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, told President Dmitry Medvedev the bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war with Chechen separatists a decade ago, vowed that “terrorists will be destroyed.”

In the wake of the explosions, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced a “heightened security presence,” NBC News reported.

The first blast just before 8 a.m. (12.00 a.m. ET) tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at the Lubyanka metro station. The explosion killed at least 23 people.

The headquarters of the FSB, Russia’s main domestic security service and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is located in a building above the station.

‘Stampede’
Another blast about 40 minutes later wrecked the second carriage of a train waiting at the Park Kultury metro station, killing 14 more people.

“I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming,” said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was waiting on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.

“I saw a dead person for the first time in my life,” said 19-year-old Valentin Popov, who also was standing on the opposite platform. “Everyone was screaming. There was a stampede at the doors. I saw one woman holding a child and pleading with people to let her through, but it was impossible.”

Surveillance camera footage posted on the Internet showed motionless bodies lying in Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers treating victims.

Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said the toll was 37 killed and 102 injured, according to Russian news agencies.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.

“The first information that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers,” he told reporters.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator ordered local airports to increase security, an official told Reuters.

President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous” attacks. “The American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism,” he added.

The Kremlin had declared victory in their battle with Chechen separatists who fought two wars with Moscow; but violence has intensified in the neighboring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, where Islamist militancy overlaps with clan rivalries and criminal rings.

‘Black Widows’
Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies with the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said a group known as the “Black Widows” may have been involved in the attack. Some “Black Widows” are believed to have lost brothers or husbands in the Chechen conflict.

“This is a direct affront to Vladimir Putin, whose entire rise to power was built on his pledge to crush the enemies of Russia,” Eyal added. “The fact of the matter is that there is very little you can do to protect against this kind of attack without shutting down the entire transport system.”

The Moscow subway system is one of the world’s busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

The blasts practically paralyzed movement on the city center’s main roads, as emergency vehicles sped to the stations. Helicopters hovered overhead the Park Kultury station area, which is next to the city’s renowned Gorky Park.

Passengers, many of them in tears, streamed out of the station, one man exclaiming over and over “This is how we live!”

The current death toll makes it the worst attack on Moscow since February 2004, when a suicide bombing killed at least 39 people and wounded more than 100 on a metro train.

Chechen separatists were blamed for that attack.

Rapid transit has increasingly become the favored means of attack for Islamist terrorists. Over the past seven years, terrorists have targeted trains and subways throughout the world, killing nearly 800 people and wounding more than 1,500.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): WATODAY

MOSCOW – Russia cut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine on Wednesday, playing hardball in a weeklong standoff that has left more than a dozen countries struggling to cope with dwindling energy supplies in the depths of winter.

The U.S. put the blame squarely on Russia, accusing Moscow of using its energy resources to threaten its neighbors.

But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin endorsed the move, even as factories shut down in eastern Europe, schools closed and tens of thousands of people scrambled to find other ways of keeping warm.

Insisting that Ukraine was responsible for the crisis, Putin appeared determined to force Kiev to back down and accept increased prices for natural gas. The two sides were to meet Thursday in the first face-to-face talks since negotiations broke down on New Year’s Eve.

The effects of the gas cutoff reverberated across the continent, with Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, among the worst hit. Croatia declared a state of emergency and Hungary instituted gas rationing for industries. The situation in Bosnia was so dire that woodcutters revved up their chain saws to cut wood for fireplaces.

“It is a shame that in the last two decades our rulers did not look for alternative sources of energy supplies. It’s again up to Moscow,” retired teacher Anelia Petrova said in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

Hundreds stormed shops in Sofia looking for electric heaters. Tsvyatko Peev got the last one in a downtown shop.

“I’m glad I got one, although I fear that the additional electricity costs will ruin the family budget,” Peev said.

In Hungary, voluntary rationing for the country’s largest consumers went into immediate effect.

Japanese carmaker Suzuki closed its plant in the northern city of Esztergom, while a brick factory belonging to Austria’s Wienerberger, the world’s largest brick manufacturer, in the eastern city of Bekescsaba and a tire factory in Racalmas, central Hungary, owned by South Korea’s Hankook also shut down due to gas shortages.

The Hungarian subsidiary of General Electric and famed salami maker Pick were among the companies cutting output.

The EU accused both Russia and Ukraine of using consumers as pawns in their dispute.

“It is unacceptable that the EU gas supply security is taken hostage to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine,” EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said.

In Washington, U.S. officials criticized Russia for the energy crisis.

“Cutting off these supplies during winter to a vulnerable population is just something that is unacceptable to us,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley warned Moscow if it continues to threaten its neighbors and manipulate their access to energy it will “compromise any aspirations for greater global influence.”

Russia supplies one-quarter of Europe’s natural gas, and about 80 percent of that is shipped through pipelines crossing Ukraine. Other smaller pipelines run through Belarus and Turkey.

Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey all reported a halt in Russian gas shipments by Wednesday. Others — including Austria, France, Germany, Hungary and Poland — reported substantial drops in supplies.

Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom stopped all gas shipments to Ukraine on Jan. 1 after the two countries failed to agree on prices and transit fees for 2009, but kept supplies flowing to Europe over Ukraine’s pipelines.

Russia reduced supplies Tuesday, accusing Ukraine of siphoning off gas meant for Europe. But Putin ordered Gazprom to stop all shipments Wednesday.

“This should be done publicly and in the presence of international observers,” he told Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pressed Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko for a quick resolution to the standoff.

“If this matter is not solved, it will raise very serious doubts about the reliability of Russia as a supplier of gas to Europe and Ukraine as a transit country,” Barroso said.

He said both countries agreed Wednesday to accept international monitors that could verify the flow of gas once it resumes.

Andrew Neff, an energy analyst with Global Insight, said Gazprom’s cutoff aimed to pressure Ukraine to settle quickly.

“While the Russian gas giant risks further sullying its already-poor reputation in Europe with its tactics, Gazprom is effectively seeking to force this dispute to an end sooner rather than later,” he wrote in an analysis.

Talks had been expected Thursday in Moscow, but Ukraine said it was sending its delegation instead to Brussels, where Gazprom’s Miller is to speak before the European Parliament.

In 2008, Russia charged Ukraine about half what it charged its European customers for gas — a Soviet-era practice it has long sought to change. Ukraine, however, says if it pays more for natural gas, Russia should pay more for shipping that gas across Ukraine.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday that Moscow would insist that Kiev pay European prices “without discount.” Medvedev also demanded full payment of Ukraine’s $600 million debt to Gazprom, which Ukraine has said it will not pay until the issue is settled in arbitration courts.

Ukraine, which has a vast underground storage system full of natural gas, says it can weather the dispute until early April.

Gazprom, however, is losing substantial income during a peak season for gas consumption. It also will soon see an excess of gas in its system, which will create a costly storage problem.

SOURCE: YAHOO!NEWS

On October 23, 2002, about 50 Chechen rebels storm a Moscow theater, taking up to 700 people hostage during a sold-out performance of a popular musical.

The second act of the musical “Nord Ost” was just beginning at the Moscow Ball-Bearing Plant’s Palace of Culture when an armed man walked onstage and fired a machine gun into the air. The terrorists–including a number of women with explosives strapped to their bodies–identified themselves as members of the Chechen Army. They had one demand: that Russian military forces begin an immediate and complete withdrawal from Chechnya, the war-torn region located north of the Caucasus Mountains.

Chechnya, with its predominately Muslim population, had long struggled to assert its independence. A disastrous two-year war ended in 1996, but Russian forces returned to the region just three years later after Russian authorities blamed Chechens for a series of bombings in Russia. In 2000, President Vladimir Putin was elected partly because of his hard-line position towards Chechnya and his public vow not to negotiate with terrorists.

After a 57-hour-standoff at the Palace of Culture, during which two hostages were killed, Russian special forces surrounded and raided the theater on the morning of October 26. Later it was revealed that they had pumped a powerful narcotic gas into the building, knocking nearly all of the terrorists and hostages unconscious before breaking into the walls and roof and entering through underground sewage tunnels. Most of the guerrillas and 120 hostages were killed during the raid. Security forces were later forced to defend the decision to use the dangerous gas, saying that only a complete surprise attack could have disarmed the terrorists before they had time to detonate their explosives.

After the theater crisis, Putin’s government clamped down even harder on Chechnya, drawing accusations of kidnapping, torture and other atrocities. In response, Chechen rebels continued their terrorist attacks on Russian soil, including an alleged suicide bombing in a Moscow subway in February 2004 and another major hostage crisis at a Beslan school that September.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2008-10-23