Posted on 06/05/2003 7:20:15 PM PDT by chance33_98
13 Russian Air Force Officials, Others Killed In Suicide Attack
Updated on 2003-06-05 06:50:33
MOSCOW, Russia: June 05 (PNS) - At least 13 people have been killed after a female suicide bomber blew up a bus in southern Russia, Russian officials have said.
The explosion happened near the city of Mozdok in North Ossetia, which borders the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The bus was carrying Russian air force personnel and civilians.
"Just as the bus was going over a railway crossing the woman walked up to it and blew herself up," a Russian defence ministry spokesman said.
Mozdok is the headquarters of Russian forces which have been fighting militants in Chechnya for the past decade. Russian news agencies said the bus was targeted on a road between Mozdok and a military base six kilometres (four miles) away.
There are frequent attacks on military vehicles in the region. The attack comes a day after comes a day after the Russian parliament approved an amnesty for Chechen rebels.
Suicide bomber kills 18 Russians (source UPI)
MOSCOW, June 5 (UPI) -- A female suicide bomber detonated a belt filled with explosives Thursday next to a bus filled with Russian air force personnel in North Ossetia, killing at least 18 people.
The woman, believed to be a Chechen, was dressed in a white medical coat covering shrapnel-filled explosives.
Police officials said she tried to board the bus, which was carrying between 27 and 40 people, many of them women, as it was leaving the town of Mozdok, near the border with Chechnya, destined for the Russian air base at Prokhladny, just four miles outside town.
The airfield is used by Russia's 4th Air Army.
According to Russian television networks, the driver apparently sensed something wrong and prevented the woman from boarding the bus, whereupon she detonated the explosives in an act of desperation outside the bus's front door, killing herself and at least 18 others, including five women passengers.
Witnesses said the woman had tried to enter the bus, and she had obviously intended to kill the maximum number of people in her kamikaze attack.
More than a dozen people were injured in the attack, seven of them critically, Emergency Situations Ministry officials said. The powerful explosion left the red-and-white a complete wreck.
Russia's Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said the identity of the bomber has not been established. "Little was left of her," he told the Interfax news agency.
Fridinsky said he believed the woman may have intended to get inside the airbase once aboard the bus, rather than bomb the bus itself, so as to cause even greater damage. But her plan was went awry when the bus driver refused to let her board the staff bus carrying air crew and the base's support workers.
At least 78 people were killed in two suicide attacks in Chechnya in May, but this is the first suicide attack in the neighboring Russian autonomous republic of North Ossetia, which is used by the Russian military as a base and staging ground for operations inside the rebellious Chechen territory.
Meanwhile, three U.N. observers -- two Germans and a Dane -- and their interpreter were seized by eight unknown assailants while monitoring a section of the Georgian-Abkhazian border.
Initially, the masked gunmen seized eight people, including four Russian peacekeepers, but the hostage-takers disarmed and released the Russian soldiers, who raised the alarm.
The peacekeepers and a 114-member U.N. monitoring team from the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia, known as UNOMIG, control the demilitarized zone in the Kodor Gorge running between the former Soviet republic of Georgia and its breakaway territory of Abkhazia, which is claiming independence.
Georgian officials believe the hostage-takers are Abkhazian rebels who are holding their captives at the mountain village of Azhara.
The rebels have kidnapped U.N. monitors on at least three previous occasions, but the observers were released after negotiations.
Guess she didnt want the amnisty?
This to me shows the arrogance of the oppressor. They decree amnesty. Did it ever occur to you that maybe Chechens don't subscribe to Russian decree? Maybe Chechens desire to rule themselves. If this is the case then I would submit to you that since Russia won't get the bleeding he77 out of there that a state of war exists in the Chechen's mindset.
Her family, two generations removed, should be exiled to central asia and homes exploded. Give the land to Cossaks....armed Russian Christian Cossaks.
Christian now is it? And who pray tell is going to be doing the giving? Hmm? The non existant ,ever beneficient New World Socialist Capitalism Order? Let me guess, perfected by our dear friends the Russians. Only now they proclaim to believe in God. All the while working to dicredit Jesus in the US. What a paradox. I wonder which side truth is really on and which side CNN/NY Slimes is trying to get US on?
Ah, yes. Power to the people. All struggling "pipples" deserve their own nation. Even terrorist pests and scum. The old commie dictum now taken up by the Islamics and their useful idiots.
you may want to consider that the ends only justify the means, if the means and the ends are so diametrically opposed and unable to entertain even the thought of the ability to negotiate a solution.
You lost me here with the very first sentence. I did not at anytime suggest not to negotiate a solution. I will point out that a solution imposed by an occupier/oppressor is hardly negotiation. Niether solution at the point of a Russian soldiers gun nor solution of suicide bombings has been advocated by myself. I merely point out that arrogance of oppressors decree's only inflame those that perceive themselves as the oppressed.
The "Kill them all" factor must weigh in, because that is what most of the rest of us view you "hardliners" as.
What do you view me as? A kill them all factor? Again I have no idea what you are talking about.
When reduced to that choice,the obvious answer to rational peace is the total destruction of those who claim to be Palestinians. So much for the negotiation you just a moment ago were advocating huh? Now I ask you who is advocating the Kill em all mentality? Look in the mirror sister. But I guess as long as it suits your side (whatever side that is) its okay right?
The world may be up for a new genocide of those who advocate Islamic hatred. Does your Allah give you 72 virgins if we, the entire balance of all of humanity, yearn to destroy you before you can murder innocent men,women and children? Once again, as you have yet to do, please point out the post in which you think I advocate Islamic hatred. Do you actually read what people post or do you rely on others blind biased interpretations of what some say? I am not even Muslim. I am Catholic. I have been promised no amount of virgins by anyone. I have been offered life eternal if I accept and dedicate myself to serving God through Jesus. As such I disagree with tyranny in the form of a man made oppressive government like that of the USSR and modern day Russia where the state decrees rights to citizens instead of the other way around. Man is meant to be free. It is free citizens granting a limited government specific powers that was the basis of our founders. All men everywhere should have the freedom to decide how they wished to be ruled. The Russians believe that humanity exists to serve the state. With this I will always wholeheartily disagree. I am sorry if you wish to remain neutral on this. It is that point of view that has allowed Socialism to grow in this country.
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