Woman bomber behind Moscow blast
Five people were killed and 13 injured when a woman suicide bomber set off an explosion in a car near Moscow’s Red Square today.
The ITAR-Tass news agency said the blast was on the capital’s main shopping street, Tverskaya, near the National Hotel, on a corner diagonally across from a gate leading into Red Square and the Kremlin.
Ten people were treated on the spot, ITAR-Tass said.
Two witnesses told Russian state television that they had their backs to the blast and heard a huge bang shortly before 11am (8am Irish time).
“We felt a kind of whoosh, heard a bang, and saw smoke,” said one, who was not identified.
Windows on the first and second floor of the first class hotel were shattered, she said.
Russian state television showed footage of the broken windows, and the sound of car alarms could be heard.
Russians have been jittery about terrorist acts since a series of explosions in Moscow and southern Russia blamed on Chechen rebels.
Last week 44 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a train in southern Russia.
Altogether, close to 300 people have been killed in Russia in bombings and other attacks blamed on Chechens over the past year.
A suicide lorry-bomb attack last December destroyed the headquarters of Chechnya’s Moscow-backed government and killed 72 people, and another killed 60 at a government compound in the region in May.
Later that month, a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.
In June, a woman suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to a military airfield in Mozdok, a major staging point for Russian troops in Chechnya, killing at least 16 people.
