Posted on September 9, 2010 - by Venik

Islamist militants blamed after suicide bomb kills 16 in Russian Orthodox city

Vladimir Putin says attack in relatively quiet Vladikavkaz was designed to ‘sow enmity between our citizens’

At least 16 people were killed today and more than 100 injured when a car bomb ripped through a market in the relatively quiet southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz, in what appears to be the latest suicide strike by Islamist militants.

Police said the bomber drove into the crowded marketplace at 11.20am local time, then blew himself up. The bomb hidden in the boot contained the equivalent of 40kg of TNT, officials added.

Investigators said the suicide bomber drove a Volga saloon which he bought on Wednesday in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia. The car’s previous owner who was being interrogated said he had sold it to an unidentified man.

Officials said 114 people were injured, with 108 treated in hospital. The death toll rose to 16 when an 18-month-old boy died in intensive care. His three-year-old sister was critically wounded, the health ministry said.

Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, condemned the attack as “monstrous”. The prime minister, Vladimir Putin, said the attack was designed to “sow enmity between our citizens”. He called on Russia’s substantial Muslim population to make a “decisive contribution” in the fight against extremism.

Russia is fighting a rampant Islamist insurgency across the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus. Bomb attacks and shoot-outs take place daily, with Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya the epicentre of the violence. But the republic of North Ossetia and its historic capital Vladikavkaz have been relatively immune. Its inhabitants are predominantly orthodox Russians, lending a sectarian dimension to the bombing.

It was the most serious attack in North Ossetia since the Beslan school siege in 2004, in which 331 people died, most of them children. Schoolchildren in the republic were sent home today. Security was also bolstered in Moscow, with traffic police instructed to look out for vehicles with North Caucasus plates.

The blast follows another major terrorist strike against civilians in March, when two female suicide bombers from Dagestan blew up the Moscow metro.

Experts said today’s attack may have been a response to the killings over the summer of several rebel commanders by security forces. “It appears to be part of a strategy by radical groups to attack soft targets and kill civilians,” said Dr Cerwyn Moore of Birmingham University, an expert in political violence in the North Caucasus.

“Their aim is to destabilise the region and retaliate for federal successes in countering the insurgency in the North Caucasus.”

Radical groups viewed North Ossetia as a staunch ally of the Kremlin and an outpost of Christianity, Moore said, as well as a staging post for federal attacks during Moscow’s second Chechen war.

Moore said the choice of North Ossetia, and the timing of the attack, may reflect infighting within the insurgency. Rebel leader Doku Umarov stepped down in August and was replaced by Aslanbek Vadalov, a veteran Chechen field commander. Umarov has now ousted Vadalov again as head of the self-styled emirate.

Vadalov’s supporters are believed to have been behind an attack last month on the home village of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Moscow-installed president. These latest attacks could indicate that radical and moderate factions are vying for power within the hierarchy of Islamist insurgency, Moore said.

Vladikavkaz – the name means ruler of the Caucasus – was an imperial outpost in tsarist times, and has long been a Russian enclave surrounded by Muslim villages and highlands.

Initially a small fort on the Terek River, founded by Catherine the Great, it played a crucial role in extending Russian control the region. It is now a bridgehead to the separatist Georgian territory of South Ossetia, recognised by Moscow as an independent state.

Original article

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