Pockmarks from ball bearings used in the second suicide bomb scar a sidewalk at the Tushino airfield Monday. Graffiti on the wall reads: "We remember you!" and "Death to Chechnya."
Posted on 07/09/2003 11:53:38 AM PDT by RussianConservative
Pockmarks from ball bearings used in the second suicide bomb scar a sidewalk at the Tushino airfield Monday. Graffiti on the wall reads: "We remember you!" and "Death to Chechnya."
Several passers-by looking at the site of the second suicide bombing on Monday.
President Vladimir Putin, speaking two days after suicide bombers killed 13 at a Moscow rock festival, said Monday that Russia will not give in to terrorism and promised to hunt down and destroy Chechen terrorist groups.
"They must be plucked out of the basements and caves where they remain hiding and destroyed. Their main task is to undermine the process of a political settlement [in Chechnya]," Putin said at a Cabinet meeting.
Two female suicide attackers wearing belts with explosives blew themselves up Saturday afternoon outside the Tushino airfield, where some 40,000 young people were attending the annual Krylya rock festival. Eleven people were killed on the spot, while two more died later in the hospital. More than 50 people were injured in the blasts, which occurred 15 minutes apart.
"After the latest series of terrorist attacks, we can say that the bandits operating in Chechnya are not only connected with international terrorist organizations but they have become an inalienable -- maybe the most dangerous -- part of the international terrorist network," Putin told the meeting.
"I will stress once again that no country in the world is under the sway of terrorists, and Russia won't be either," he said.
No arrests have been made in Saturday's attack. The Prosecutor General's Office is looking for the organizers of the blasts and possible accomplices, prosecutor's office spokeswoman Natalya Vishnyakova said.
Thirty-eight people remained hospitalized Monday, five in critical condition, Moscow health committee spokeswoman Lyubov Zhomova said.
All of those injured and killed have been identified except for the second suicide bomber, officials said.
The first bomber, 20-year-old Chechen Zalikhan Elikhadzhiyeva, lived for about 20 minutes after her explosives only partially detonated outside a gate to the rock festival, Russian newspapers reported Monday. Doctors said she died of massive blood loss.
She was tentatively identified after investigators found what is believed to be her passport near her body.
Investigators also discovered an airline ticket in her name showing that she flew to Moscow from Tbilisi the day before the attack, local media said.
The Georgian State Security Ministry denied Monday that a passenger with her name was on the passenger lists of any flights Friday.
The body of the second suicide bomber was shredded beyond recognition, and Federal Security Service investigators took away her decapitated head, Kommersant reported.
All 13 victims were killed in the second explosion, which occurred about 100 meters away from the first and at the entrance to the Tushino outdoor clothing market, where concert tickets were being sold.
Mourners on Monday placed flowers and candles at a makeshift shrine to the victims just 2 meters away from the epicenter of the second blast. The sidewalk was dotted with pockmarks from the ball bearings used in the bomb. Fresh graffiti scrawled across the wall of a nearby underpass read: "We will remember you forever" and "Death to Chechnya."
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov declared Tuesday a day of mourning. All concerts and shows at city venues have been cancelled.
Luzhkov also said each of those injured in the attack would receive 50,000 rubles in compensation and families of those killed would receive 100,000 rubles.
The first victims will be buried Wednesday, Interfax reported.
City Hall ordered that all attics and basements in Moscow apartment buildings be checked to prevent new attacks.
Meanwhile, organizers have called off a two-day outdoor rock festival, Nashestviye, that had been scheduled for the first weekend of August. They cited security concerns for the cancellation.
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And that absolves Putin, how?
Sure, I know I've probably been watching too many James Bond movies but seriously, if they have the resources and the will to use them, wass de prollem??
I don't know if their comments are worse, but they are just as bad. What's your point?
You need to get priority straight and refocus.
What priorities and refocus on what?
Frankly, he might have been saying all the wrong things in public about the war on terror...and I'm sure he wanted the money Saddam owed him...but in private, I bet he backed Hussein's whacking.
And we ought to back him up in eradicating Chechnya of those nutjobs.
Gawd-damn..now THAT's what I'm talkin' about.
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