10 killed in Moscow attack

By Peter Baker
The Washington Post

MIKHAIL METZEL / AP An unidentified young woman is consoled after an explosion outside Moscow's Rizhskaya subway station. At least 10 people were killed and 51 injured in the second apparent terrorist attack in Russia in a week.

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The bombing occurred a week after explosives downed two Russian passenger jets almost simultaneously, killing 90 people in one of the deadliest attacks on civilian targets in Russia in years. Russian authorities have been investigating two female passengers with Chechen names who boarded the two planes on last-minute tickets and may have detonated explosives made from hexogen.

An Islamic extremist group with apparent ties to al-Qaida that claimed responsibility for the plane crashes said it carried out yesterday's bombing as well.

"We in the Islambouli Brigades announce our responsibility for this operation ... which comes in support of Muslims of Chechnya," it said in a statement, according to news-agency reports from the Middle East.

Even before the subway-station bombing, Russian media reported that two other Chechen women accompanied the apparent plane bombers to Moscow in the days before the twin crashes and were still at large in the capital.

Anticipating further attacks, authorities had stepped up security around the city, and initial reports last night suggested the suicide bomber turned away from the subway station after seeing police officers checking documents at the entrance.

"She got scared of them, turned around and decided to blow herself up among the people," Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters after rushing to the scene. "There were many people there. The explosion was very powerful."

Some Chechen female suicide bombers are believed to be so-called "black widows," who have lost husbands or male relatives in the fighting that has gripped the southern region of Chechnya over most of the past decade.

The explosion transformed a mild late-summer evening in northern Moscow into a bloody scene of screaming bystanders, burning cars and rescue squads. Some bodies were found dozens of yards from the explosion.

The Moscow subway system was bustling yesterday with returning vacationers on the last day of summer vacation before the opening of schools. The Rizhskaya metro station is situated just off Prospekt Mira, or Boulevard of Peace, one of the city's major thoroughfares.

The bomb contained about two pounds of TNT along with iron bolts and other metal fragments intended to kill victims, officials said. The explosion at about 8:15 p.m. set two cars on fire and pelted passers-by with slicing metal shards. The blazing automobiles sent plumes of dark smoke into the air. At first, witnesses thought a car bomb had exploded.
 
Nearby shop windows were shattered. Rescue workers loaded bodies onto blue tarps and hauled them away. Seven people, including the bomber, were killed instantly, and others later died of injuries, officials said. Three children were reported among the wounded.

A blast inside a subway car here in February killed more than 40 people. Altogether, more than 600 people have died in terrorist attacks in Russia in the past two years. Most of the attacks have been related to the war in the separatist republic of Chechnya.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.