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Moscow Blast Kills 50, Muslims Condemn
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A wounded victim
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Additional
Reporting By Damir Ahmed, IOL Correspondent
MOSCOW,
February 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As many as 50
people were killed in Moscow Friday, February 6, in a bomb blast blamed
on a Chechen female fighter but condemned by Muslim leaders in the
country.
"Islam
is not a terror religion, although some people carry out terrorist
attacks under the flag of Islam," secretary general of the Russian
muftis told IslamOnline.net.
Ramil
Pillayiv made the denunciation of killing any civilians after the
Russian TV said a Chechen female blew herself up in the train's second
car, which was completely damaged in impact.
ITAR-TASS
quoted an FSB state security official as saying: "The main version
of the incident is a terrorist act", according to Reuters.
The
explosion occurred at 8:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. EST) on Moscow's
Paveletskaya Square in the rush hour, where the train is usually crammed
with commuters at that time of the day.
Self-bomb
attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia have been the trade-mark of
Chechen fighters seeking to end Russian occupation and abuses of their
Muslim Caucasus homeland.
Observers
and analysts believe the attacks are out of desperation, as Moscow paid
no heed to waves of criticisms over its soldiers' abuses and humiliating
treatment of civilians in Chechnya.
The
Russian human rights watch-dogs issued
a book on October 8 last year documenting hundreds of cases of civilians
killed or abducted in Chechnya.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee slated in
a December report the ill-treatment of detainees under interrogation,
executions and torture in Chechnya. Rape cases were also reported by
Russian forces in the Islamic republic.
Conflicting
Death Toll
The
Interfax news agency earlier quoted a rescue official as saying that the
toll in the blast stood at 40 people, Agence France-Presse (AFP).
While
an Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman said by telephone that 30 people had
been confirmed dead and 100 injured, according to Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
Al-Jazeera
chief correspondent in Moscow quoted an unnamed Russian security source,
however, as saying that the death toll of the huge rush-hour blast is
“much higher than that reported”.
"The
authorities did not want to release the true figures for fear of public
impact before the March Presidential polls," the correspondent said
on air by telephone.
Russian
officials had earlier said they expected the toll to grow throughout the
day.
Female
Bomber
The
city was already on alert for attacks after earlier bombings in Moscow
blamed on the army's aggressions in Chechnya.
The
incident took place just six weeks before a March 14 election for
President in which the incumbent Vladimir Putin is widely expected to
win a second Kremlin term easily, Reuters said.
Putin
denounced the explosion, as news of the blast hit Russian financial
markets, sending the rouble down 0.3 percent against the dollar and
weakening shares slightly, the news agency said
"Terrorism
is the plague of the 21st century," Putin said during a meeting
with visiting Azeri President Heidar Aliyev, who called the incident
"a great human tragedy. I understand how difficult it must be today
for the Russian people."
More
Attacks
The
explosion came a few hours after a grenade exploded in the southern
Russian city of Vladikavkaz Thursday, February 5, killing two people in
the second deadly blast there in three days, the Emergencies Ministry
said.
An
explosion Tuesday outside a bank in Vladikavkaz, regional capital of
North Ossetia region, also killed two people, including a Russian
serviceman.
In
December last year, six people died when a female bomber blew herself up
outside Moscow's National Hotel, several hundred meters from the
Kremlin.
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