Woman suicide bomber kills at least 13 at Russian station

Top News Woman suicide bomber kills at least 13 at Russian station Sun, Dec 29 06:27 AM EST image By Alissa de Carbonnel MOSCOW (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber blew herself up in the entrance hall of a Russian train station on Sunday, killing at least 13 people in the second deadly attack in the space of three days as the country prepares to host the Winter Olympics. The state Investigative Committee said the bomber detonated her explosives in front of a metal detector just inside the main entrance of Volgograd station. Footage shown on TV showed a massive orange fireball filling the hall and smoke billowing out through shattered windows. "People were lying on the ground, screaming and asking for help," a witness, Alexander Koblyakov, told Rossiya-24 TV. A spokesman for Russian investigators said at least 13 people died, although the regional governor put the toll at 15. President Vladimir Putin ordered law enforcement agencies to take all necessary measures to ensure security, RIA news agency quoted his spokesman as saying. A federal police spokesman, Vladimir Kolesnikov, said security would be stepped up at train stations and airports. Russian Heath Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai said 42 people were wounded and that some would be flown to Moscow for treatment. Volgograd is a city of around 1 million people, about 430 miles northeast of Sochi, where the Winter Olympics - a major prestige project for Putin - will open on February 7. Formerly known as Stalingrad, it lies close to Russia's North Caucasus, a strip of mostly Muslim provinces plagued by near-daily violence in a long-running Islamist insurgency. Insurgent leader Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord, urged militants in a video posted online in July to use "maximum force" to prevent Putin staging the Olympics. An attack by a female suicide bomber killed seven people in Volgograd on October 21. On Friday, a car bomb killed three people in the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk, 270 km (170 miles) east of Sochi. The station was busier than usual, with people travelling home for the New Year holidays. TV footage showed emergency services carrying out victims, with at least one body lying motionless on the ground. Another witness, Vladimir, said: "I saw melted, twisted bits of metal, broken glass and bodies lying on the street." Sunday's attack was the deadliest to strike Russia's heartland since January 2011, when Islamist insurgents killed 37 people at a Moscow airport. (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman,; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) ======================= Dec. 30, 2013 5:33 AM ET Successive suicide bombings in Russia kill over 30 By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES AIM Share An ambulance leaves the site of a trolleybus explosion in Volgograd, Russia, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013. The explosion left 10 people dead Monday, a day after a suicide bombing that killed at least 17 at the city's main railway. The explosions put the city on edge and highlighted the terrorist threat that Russia is facing as it prepares to host the Winter Games in February. Volgograd is about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Sochi, where the Olympics are to be held. (AP Photo/Denis Tyrin) 1 of 5 More News Video North Sea crossing aborted after suspected arson Dec. 29, 2013 7:08 AM ET Suicide bomber kills 13 in Russia's south Dec. 29, 2013 6:19 AM ET Fire on express train in India kills at least 26 Dec. 28, 2013 10:58 AM ET Fire on express train in India kills at least 23 Dec. 27, 2013 9:45 PM ET Winter storm delays flights, kills 5 in UK, France Dec. 24, 2013 11:57 AM ET Buy AP Photo Reprints MOSCOW (AP) — A blast that tore through an electric bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd during Monday's morning rush hour, killing 14, was probably carried out by suicide bombers from the same organization behind a railway explosion a day earlier, officials said. Together more than 30 people were killed in the explosions, putting the city of one million on edge and highlighting the terrorist threat Russia is facing as it prepares to host February's Winter Games in Sochi, President Vladimir Putin's pet project. While terrorists may find it hard to get to the tightly guarded Olympic facilities, the bombings have shown they can hit civilian targets elsewhere in Russia with shocking ease. Volgograd, located about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Sochi, serves as a key transport hub for southern Russia, with numerous bus routes linking it to volatile provinces in Russia's North Caucasus, where insurgents have been seeking an Islamic state. Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for Russia's main investigative agency said Monday's explosion involved a bomb similar to the one used in Sunday's bombing at the city's main railway station. "That confirms the investigators' version that the two terror attacks were linked," Markin said in a statement. "They could have been prepared in one place." Markin said that a suicide attacker was responsible for the bus explosion, reversing an earlier official statement saying that the blast was caused by a bomb that had been left in the vehicle's passenger area. At least 14 people were killed and nearly 30 were wounded, according to public health officials. Officials did not name names and no one has claimed responsibility for either bombing, but they came several months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov threatened new attacks against civilian targets in Russia, including the Olympics in Sochi. Suicide bombings and other terror attacks have rocked Russia for years, but most recently have been confined to the North Caucasus region. The successive attacks in Volgograd signaled that militants may be using the transportation hub as a renewed way of showing their reach outside their restive region. The city, formerly called Stalingrad, also serves as an important symbol of Russian pride because of a historic World War II battle in which the Soviets turned the tide against the Nazis. "Volgograd, a symbol of Russia's suffering and victory in World War II, has been singled out by the terrorist leaders precisely because of its status in people's minds," Dmitry Trenin, the head of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said in a commentary. Monday's explosion ripped away much of the bus's exterior and shattered windows in nearby buildings. It virtually paralyzed public transport in the city, forcing many residents to walk long distances to get to work. Russian authorities have been slow to introduce stringent security checks on bus routes, making them the transport of choice for terrorists in the region. A few months ago authorities introduced a requirement for intercity bus passengers to produce ID when buying tickets, like rail or air passengers, but procedures have remained lax and some of the routes aren't controlled. Even tight railway security is sometimes not enough. In Sunday's suicide bombing the attacker detonated in the crowd in front of the station's metal detectors. A suicide bus bombing in Volgograd in October killed six people. On Friday, three people were killed when an explosives-rigged car blew up in the city of Pyatigorsk, the center of a federal administrative district created to oversee Kremlin efforts to stabilize the North Caucasus region. In Sunday's railroad station blast, the bomber detonated explosives just beyond the station's main entrance when a police sergeant became suspicious and rushed forward to check ID, officials said. The officer was killed by the blast, and several other policemen were among some 40 people wounded. The Interior Ministry ordered police to beef up patrols at railway stations and other transport facilities across Russia. Putin on Monday summoned the chief of the main KGB successor agency and the interior minister to discuss the situation, and sent the former to Volgograd to oversee the probe. Russia in past years has seen a series of terror attacks on buses, trains and airplanes, some carried out by suicide bombers. Twin bombings on the Moscow subway in March 2010 by female suicide bombers killed 40 people and wounded more than 120. In January 2011, a male suicide bomber struck Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing 37 people and injuring more than 180. Umarov, who had claimed responsibility for the 2010 and 2011 bombings, ordered a halt to attacks on civilian targets during the mass street protests against Putin in the winter of 2011-12. He reversed that order in July, urging his men to "do their utmost to derail" the Sochi Olympics which he described as "satanic dances on the bones of our ancestors." The International Olympics Committee expressed its condolences over Sunday's bombing in Volgograd, but said it was confident of Russia's ability to protect the Games. Russian Olympic Committee chief Alexander Zhukov said Monday there was no need to take any extra steps to secure Sochi in the wake of the Volgograd bombings, as "everything necessary already has been done." Russian authorities have introduced some of the most extensive identity checks and sweeping security measures ever seen at an international sports event. Anyone wanting to attend the games that open on Feb. 7 will have to buy a ticket online from the organizers and obtain a "spectator pass" for access. Doing so will require providing passport details and contacts that will allow the authorities to screen all visitors and check their identities upon arrival. The security zone created around Sochi stretches approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) along the Black Sea coast and up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) inland. Russian forces include special troops to patrol the forested mountains flanking the resort, drones to keep constant watch over Olympic facilities and speed boats to patrol the coast. The security plan includes a ban on cars from outside the zone from a month before the games begin until a month after they end. _____ Associated Press writer Jim Heintz contributed to this report.