MOSCOW - Two women suicide bombers blew themselves up at a giant rock festival
in suburban Moscow on Saturday, killing at least 16 people, Russian officials
said. The interior minister said Chechen rebels may have been beind the attack.
Up to 40,000 spectators, many of them young, were attending the popular annual
festival at the Tushino airfield when the explosions went off at two differnt
gates. One of the blasts tore off people's clothing and sent garbage flying through
the air, said spectator Alexander Yefimov.
The first blast took place after guards stopped a woman at the entrance to the
festival and she detonated an explosives- packed belt, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass
news agencies reported, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.
Police then directed the audience to leave through the airfield's second gate
— and there the second bomb went off, said Rustam Abdulganiyev, a 17- year-old
who had been inside the airfield.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said.
Bodies lay splayed on the pavement, surrounded by pools of blood. Emergency response
officers covered them with black plastic garbage bags.
Anxious relatives who had heard of the blast on Russian radio and television crowded
the entrances but were barred from entering the airfield. Manana Gogoa's son David,
14, was attending the concert with friend. "We don't know anything. We just heard
it on TV. They won't tell us anything," she said, weeping.
Helicopters scoured the skies over the field, and ambulances and police trucks
streamed in.
Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said that 16 people were killed, not including
the bombers, who he said were women. He said suspicions pointed to Chechen rebels.
News reports said a passport found at the bombing site identified a Chechen woman.
Chechen rebels have shown an increased penchant for targeting civilians over the
past year with suicide-bomb attacks. Fears of terrorism have been high in the
Russian capital since last October's seizure of a Moscow theater by scores of
Chechen militants, including women strapped with explosives and detonators.
Moscow police spokesman Pavel Klimovsky said Saturday's blasts were set off by
two suicide bombers and that both were killed. Remnants of one of the bomber's
explosives went off about 20 minutes after the two blasts, which some witnesses
mistook for a third bombing, officials said.
Police later discovered another explosive device near one of the entrances to
the festival and defused it, said ITAR-Tass.
The one-day festival, called "Krylya" (Wings), is a highly popular summer event
for Moscow's youth, featuring many of the country's most renowned bands. The weather
Saturday afternoon, cool and partly sunny, was ideal for attracting a large crowd.
"At first I thought it was some really huge firecracker, then I realized it was
an explosion," said Vadim Trukshin, who said he was waiting in line to get in
when the first bomb went off.
The attack came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)
signed an order setting presidential election in Chechnya (news - web sites) for
Oct. 5. The elections are the latest step in Putin's strategy of trying to bring
a political resolution in the Caucasus republic even as fighting continues.
But rebel attacks have undercut the Kremlin's effort to portray the situation
in the war-shattered region as stabilizing.
In June, a female bomber blew up a bus carrying workers from a Russian air base
near Chechnya, killing herself and at least 14 people.
In May, an explosives-laden woman blew herself up in the middle of a crowd of
Muslim pilgrims, killing at least 15, in an apparent attempt to kill the Kremlin-backed
acting president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov. Two days before that attack, three
suicide bombers detonated a truck loaded with explosives outside a government
compound, killing at least
59 people.
During the Moscow theater standoff in October, Chechen militants threatened to
blow themselves up and held 800 people hostage for days. Russian special forces
ended the standoff by pumping narcotic gas into the theater and then storming
in. At least 129 hostages died, almost all from the effects of the gas.