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| Europe |
| Bomb Blast in Russia Kills 3, Injures 18 |
| 2003-07-17 |
| A powerful shrapnel-filled bomb exploded Thursday near a police station in Russia’s troubled Dagestan region, killing three people and injuring 18 others, officials said. The bomb, attached to a parked motorcycle or scooter in the city of Khasavyurt exploded at about 10:00 a.m., the regional Interior Ministry said. The blast killed one police officer, a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old girl, the ministry said. Bastards The officer, the head of a branch of the city police that provides security to private companies and state-run enterprises, was killed in his office, about 50 feet from the bomb. Authorities earlier said that a second officer, a member of a squad that fights organized crime, also died, but later said that information was wrong. The ministry said 18 people were hospitalized, three in critical condition. A spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in southern Russia, Andrei Somishchenko, meanwhile, said 12 people were in the hospital, including three in critical condition. He said a total of 35 people were hurt in the explosion. The bomb was filled with nuts, bolts and ball bearings, the ministry said. Of course it was, it’s a anti-personnel weapon. Television footage showed a street that looked like a firestorm passed through, with gutted cars and heavily damaged buildings. That sounds like a pretty big bomb for a motorcycle. Dagestan, a mostly Muslim region in southern Russia, is plagued by violence — at least some of which is related to the separatist fighting in neighboring Chechnya. Dagestan’s Interior Minister Adilgirei Magomed-Tagirov said he believed the attack was carried out by militant Wahhabi sect Muslims active in Chechnya and Dagestan. When I hear a bomb loaded with ball bearings has gone off, I think of Wahhabi’s too. |
| Posted by:Steve |