MOSCOW (Reuters) - A woman suicide bomber blew up a bus carrying Russian air force pilots in a southern region bordering rebel Chechnya on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, interior and defense ministry officials said. A defense ministry spokesman said the attack occurred in the region of North Ossetia when the bus carrying the pilots and a group of civilians attached to the air force slowed down at a railway crossing.
"Just as the bus was going over a railway crossing the woman walked up to it and blew herself up," the spokesman said in Moscow.
Coming a week after an Australian, armed with sharpened wooden sticks, allegedly tried to hijack and crash a Qantas plane, police and security staff reacted quickly and took the man off the Melbourne to Brisbane flight as it taxied before takeoff.
''There's no indication that there was any weapon on board. We're going to conduct a search of the plane as a precaution, but there were no injuries sustained or anything like that,'' a police spokeswoman said.
Sat May 31,10:22 AM ET VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - A rebel ambush and other attacks killed five Russian soldiers and wounded 11 others in and around the breakaway republic of Chechnya, officials said Saturday.
The latest bloodshed in the region — which nearly every day sees small but deadly rebel attacks — came as Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to convince world leaders gathered in St. Petersburg that his policies would bring peace to Chechnya.
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Are the terrorist in Chechnya a small percentage like the Ba'aths in Iraq. Or are they most of the Chechnians? Anyone?