'Woman suicide bomber' caused Moscow blast
At least six people were killed in a blast outside a busy Moscow underground station tonight by a suspected woman suicide bomber, early reports said.
Later the death toll rose to 10 with more than 50 injured, officials said.
The blast hit in an area between the Rizhskaya subway station in northern Moscow and a nearby supermarket-department store complex.
Initial casualty reports varied, but police spokesman Valery Gribakin said on Russian television that six people were killed and more than 20 wounded.
The blast – which some witnesses said consisted of two separate explosions - hit one week, almost to the hour, after two Russian airliners crashed within minutes of each other.
The crashes that killed 90 people in all were declared terrorist acts after officials reported finding traces of explosives in the wreckage.
Russian news agencies cited the Federal Security Service as saying the blast was caused by a female suicide bomber.
Television reports showed a white car engulfed in flames, shattered windows and bloodied people lying on the asphalt in front of the subway station.
A woman, apparently distraught by panic, fended off a man who repeatedly reached out as if to help her. A man lying on his stomach weakly moved his arm as people crowded around him.
A score of emergency vehicles, their lights flashing, and several dozen police cars clustered at the scene about an hour after the blast. The gutted, flame-blackened car stood near the store, and a mangled body lay under a cover on a nearby stairway.
Alexei Borodin, 29, was out walking with his mother when he heard “a very powerful bang. Something flew past my head, I don’t know what it was.”
“There were people lying in the square,” he said. ”There were pieces of bodies...We were walking through pieces of people.”
He said he saw “about five people” who were too badly hurt to get up. “One young guy tried to get up and couldn’t.”
Police and emergency officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
But police spokesman Valery Gribakin said six people were killed and more than 20 injured.
Anatoly Zuyev, Moscow’s chief prosecutor, told reporters at the scene that his office had opened a criminal investigation into suspected terrorism and murder.
Suicide bombings blamed on Chechen rebels and their supporters have hit Moscow and other parts of Russia over the past several years.
In February, 41 people were killed in a rush-hour explosion on the Moscow subway that officials said was a terrorist attack in December a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside a hotel adjacent to Red Square, killing five other people.
Chechens voted on Sunday for president of their warring republic in an election that was backed by the Kremlin as a move toward establishing stability.
The election was part of the Kremlin’s strategy for trying to undermine support for the separatist insurgents who have been fighting Russian forces for nearly five years.
Criminal underworld feuds in Russia also frequently spill over into violence, including car bombings, that have killed and injured bystanders.
