At least 14 people were reported dead in Chechnya last Wednesday when a second suicide bombing narrowly failed to kill the Moscow-backed head of the local administration.
The bombing came as Colin Powell, the United States Secretary of State, held talks with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Iraq and international terrorism, and just two days after a suicide bomber blew up an administration and security service building a few kilometres from the Russian border.
The death toll from the earlier explosion has risen to 59.
Russian security service officials alleged that a Saudi citizen, Abu Walid, had trained suicide bombers in Chechnya. His involvement in Wednesday’s — or Monday’s attack — however, had yet to be determined, they added.
The Kremlin has long maintained that international terrorists — funded by the same source as al-Qaeda — are behind the separatist campaign in Chechnya.
On Tuesday Putin said the ”fingerprints” of Tuesday’s bombing in Saudi Arabia and Monday’s attack in Chechnya were identical.
Russian prosecutors claimed that a week ago Chechen rebels received $1-million from abroad, which was used to fund this week’s bombings.
Wednesday’s attack was carried out by two female suicide bombers who rushed into a crowd celebrating a Muslim festival in the village of Iliskhan Yurt, Russian officials said.
The attack, at 3pm, was intended to kill Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Chechen administration, who is widely expected to be elected president in elections to be imposed by Moscow later this year. Between 10 000 and 15 000 people are attending the religious festival.
One of the bombers in Wednesday’s attack, Shahid Baimuradova (46) was a member of a unit led by the extremist rebel leader Shamil Basayev, Chechen officials said.
She wore a belt containing half a kilogram of explosive ”and blew herself up when a prayer was being read”, they said, adding that the blast occurred metres away from Kadyrov and killed four bodyguards.
Russia’s Regional Emergencies Minister in Chechnya, Ruslan Avtayev, denied some reports that 30 people had died. ”There are 14 people dead, seven died on the spot and seven in hospital,” he said, adding that 145 had been injured, 45 of them seriously.
Russia began on Wednesday to mend its torn relations with the US when its Parliament finally ratified an important nuclear arms reduction treaty, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, signed last year by President George W Bush and Putin.
But Moscow is seeking concessions in Iraq and continued support for its ”war on terror” in Chechnya before it softens its tone at the United Nations on the US-led occupation of the country.
On Tuesday, as Powell arrived in Moscow, the US State Department said Monday’s bombing of a local administration’s offices in the Znamenskoye region ”may have been meant to undercut efforts that Russian officials have undertaken with some Chechen leaders to initiate a political process”.
This is the first time that the US has referred favourably to the Kremlin’s imposed political settlement on Chechnya. It had previously urged Russia to talk to the separatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, to negotiate a political settlement.
Critics will rail against the change in tack, which occurs as Russian forces abduct and murder Chechens daily. — Â