Russia fears terror wave after 'black widow' bombing

The Russian government vowed revenge last night on the terrorists behind a double 'black widow' suicide bombing on Moscow's metro system that killed 38 people.

The bombings, the first such attack on Moscow in six years, were believed to have been carried out by two women.

They raised fears of a return to the wave of terrorism that swept the Russian capital in the last decade, and prompted a fierce response from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who promised a renewed onslaught against the Chechen separatists suspected of the attack.

"A crime that is terrible in its consequences and heinous in its manner has been committed," he said. "Law enforcement bodies will spare no effort to track down and punish the criminals. Terrorists will be destroyed."

The first explosion, just before 8am, ripped through a packed carriage at the Lubyanka metro station, a busy intersection station next to the headquarters of the KGB's successor the FSB, just a few minutes walk north from the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theatre.

Forty-five minutes later a second bomb went off at the Park Kultury station near Gorky Park.

While no one has yet claimed responsibility, and the Russian authorities have been reluctant to give away details of their investigation, the involvement of suicide bombers - especially female suicide bombers - has left few in doubt over the involvement of Chechen separatists.

FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said last night that fragments of the two bomber's bodies had been examined and appeared to be from the North Caucasus region.

And the attack comes two months after rebel leader Dokka Umarov told a supportive website: "Blood will no longer be limited to our cities and towns. The war is coming to [Russian] cities."

Eyewitnesses emerging from the underground stations described a bloody scene on the platforms. "There was one particular guy whose skin had been ripped off from head to toe down one side," said Valery Shuverov, who was on his way home from a night shift near the Park Kultury station. The bombs were said to have been filled with chipped iron rods and screws. "I saw six or seven people bleeding," Mr Shuverov added.

Another witness, Kirill Gribov, said he had arrived at the same station on another train just as the bomb went off. "I remember a cloud of gas coming from the wrecked train in front of us, coloured in pink, maybe because of blood," the 20-year-old student told The New York Times. "Some people were in panic, some stood still, but all of us somehow found our way outside the station.

"It was only at the street when I realised what had just happened. Mobile service was blocked, I couldn't even call my parents, and I had to walk several kilometres because of the traffic."

Mr Shuverov, who was not hurt himself, described the explosion as relatively small. "There was a flash and a bang - not very big, just like the kind of fire crackers we might set off at New Year. The only reason there were so many casualities was because there were so many people close by," he said. "There were so many people milling about on the platform nobody could move. It took about 30 seconds of jostling for people to get on and off the train."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who laid flowers on the platform at Lubyanka station yesterday, said that the terrorists were "simply beasts. We will find and destroy them all," he vowed. The Moscow city government declared today a day of mourning. Despite the horror of the events, Moscow reacted calmly, and the Metro system was up and running again in full by the end of the day.

Foreign governments were quick to send their sympathies. In a statement issued by the White House, Barack Obama condemned what he called the 'heinous' attack, and said the American people stood united with the people of Russia.

The US President later telephoned his Russian counterpart to personally offer his condolences. Gordon Brown said he was 'appalled' by the attacks.

The use of young women was particularly chilling for a country that has faced that threat before. Chechen rebels first used female suicide bombers in 2000, when two women blew themselves up at a Russian army base in Alkahn Yurt, a village in Chechnya that had been the scene of a massacre carried out by Russian troops the previous year.

The exploitation of vulnerable women by terrorists came to international attention with the Nord Ost Theatre siege in 2002, when women wearing explosive belts were among the hostage takers.

But there is a key difference between the women at Nord Ost and the two who killed themselves and 38 other people yesterday. "The women at Nord Ost said they were ready to die, but no one from that group decided to blow herself up," said Andrei Soldatov, editor of Russian security website Agentura.ru. "They were actually quite unprepared for it. There is a big distance between them and people who are really prepared to go through with this."

The 'black widows' used in these operations in the past have tended to be young, ill educated and in a vulnerable situation.

"They've lost all the males in their families, or they've lost their honour or they've been discovered in an 'inappropriate' relationship with a man," said Mr Soldatov. That gives the terrorists enough leverage to pressure 'psychologically broken young women into 'redeeming' themselves," he added.

- THE INDEPENDENT

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