Investigators pledged to hunt down the organizers of a truck bombing that shattered a Chechen government compound, killing 54 people and wounding 300.
The blast also raised questions about the level of security provided by federal forces in the war-torn republic.
The head of Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, said Monday's attack proved that it was necessary to "introduce changes in the conduct of the counter-terrorist operation" in Chechnya, the Interfax news agency reported.
He proposed that responsibility for fighting rebels be switched to the region's own Interior Ministry instead of the Moscow-based Federal Security Service and Russian troops.
The blast occurred Monday as top officials of the Nadterechny region of northern Chechnya held their regular morning meeting in the government headquarters in Znamenskoye. Three suicide attackers blew up a truck laden with explosives nearby, reducing eight buildings to rubble and killing or injuring government workers, civilian visitors, shopkeepers and residents of neighboring apartments.
Russian and Chechen officials quickly blamed Chechen rebels for the bombing, although the exact motive remained uncertain. The daily newspaper Izvestia reported that the motive might have been retaliation for a recent crack down on oil and metal smuggling from the region.
The White House condemned the bombing, saying such an act of terrorism was not justified by any "political, national of religious cause," according to a statement issued by spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Chechens in the Nadterechny district where the blast occurred spent Tuesday in mourning; many stores were closed and the main market was shuttered.
Magomed Goitiev, 53, lost his wife and two daughters, including one who was celebrating her 25th birthday on Monday.
Unlike Grozny, which suffers nearly daily rebel attacks, the Nadterechny district had been considered remarkably stable. It was the first area to come under the control of Russian forces that entered the republic in 1999, starting the second war in a decade.
Even though the rebels are outnumbered and outgunned throughout the republic, they continue to inflict daily casualties. In the last 24 hours, eight federal servicemen were killed and seven wounded in rebel attacks, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said on condition of anonymity.
Federal forces shelled suspected rebel positions in the mountainous Vedeno district and detained 180 people on suspicion of aiding the rebels.
Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 after rebels fought them to a standstill in a 20-month conflict.
The ground troops returned in September 1999 after Chechnya-based rebels mounted incursions into neighboring Dagestan and after about 300 people died in apartment explosions that Russian officials blamed on the rebels.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in