Police in Moscow found and defused two car bombs overnight in the Russian capital, Russian media reported on Saturday.
Police discovered the two cars, filled with explosives and mines, on two separate residential streets in the city centre late on Friday, Interfax reported, citing an unnamed police official.
Residents from surrounding houses were evacuated overnight to a nearby school as sappers from the FSB (ex-KGB) security services defused the explosives, NTV television reported.
”We were sleeping and got a call around 5am [1am GMT], I think,” a woman told NTV. ”They said there was the threat of a blast … we quickly left.”
Moscow police spokesperson Kiril Mazurin confirmed to Interfax that the cars were found, but declined to comment further on the incident.
The incident came a fortnight after a week that saw four major terror acts on Russian soil, including a deadly school hostage taking in the southern town of Beslan that killed nearly 340 people, half of them children.
The school was seized a day after a woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a metro station in Moscow, killing 10 people, and a week after the downing of two planes, which left 90 dead.
All of the violence was on Friday claimed by notorious Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, according to a rebel website. — Sapa-AFP