Russia Seeks Clues In Market Bombing
11:19 a.m. Mar 20, 1999 Eastern
By Peter Henderson
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian government said Saturday a
market bombing which killed more than 50 could be the work of
religious extremists while newspapers looked for clues in the battle
for power in neighboring Chechnya.
Officials revised downwards the death toll from Friday's blast,
saying 51 were killed when the blast tore through the main market
in Vladikavkaz, about 50 km (30 miles) from Russia's breakaway
republic of Chechnya.
Previously police had estimated the number of dead at 61.
''World analogies, as a rule, indicate that representatives of
religious fanatics are often responsible for such acts,'' Interior
Minister Sergei Stepashin told Russian television from Vladikavkaz
in volatile southern Russia.
He said bomb fragments would be examined in Moscow
laboratories for clues to the bomb's origin.
The Emergencies Ministry and a spokesman for the head of the
Northern Ossetia region, of which Vladikavkaz is the capital,
agreed on the death toll and said 154 had been injured, of whom
82 were in hospital.
The Kremlin announced that Sunday would be a national day of
mourning for victims of the bombing and of a fire in another region
that killed more than 20 people earlier in the week.
Police made composite images, based on witnesses' accounts, of
two suspects who deposited a bag in the market and left minutes
before the explosion, Lev Dzugayev, press secretary for regional
government head Alexander Dzasokhov, told Reuters.
He said no opposition group in the region was capable of such an
act. ''It must be outside forces,'' he said by telephone from the
region.
The explosion occurred in the area of the crowded market where
potatoes were sold, the Emergencies Ministry said. Television
pictures showed bloodstained wreckage of market stalls and
bodies amid heaps of potatoes and clothing.
Officials have said the bomb may have been meant to undermine
regional political stability and the federal government's reputation.
The newspaper Kommersant Daily said violence had spilled out of
Chechnya as the wartorn republic tried to make a collective choice
on its future between religious and secular leaders.
Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov is expected to visit Moscow
for talks in the coming days. Kommersant said the opposition
might be eager to foment a conflict between neighboring regions to
keep Russia occupied.
Dzugayev said the federal government, Russian regions and the
neighboring former Soviet republic of Georgia had all sent aid
which had arrived by Saturday. But the region has asked for more
help, he added.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
