SECOND BLAST IN RUSSIA’S VOLGOGRAD CITY KILLS 10
A bomb blast ripped a trolleybus apart in Volgograd today, killing at least 10 people in the second deadly attack in the southern city in two days and raising fears of further violence as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics.
The morning rush-hour bombing, which left mangled bodies in the street, underscored Russia's vulnerability to militant attacks less than six weeks before the Sochi 2014 Games, a prestige project for President Vladimir Putin.
It came less than 24 hours after a suicide bomb blast killed at least 17 people in the main railway station in the same city, a major transport hub in southern Russia.
A Reuters journalist saw the blue-and-white trolleybus reduced to a twisted, gutted carcass, its roof blown off and bodies and debris strewn across the street.
"For the second day, we are dying - it's a nightmare," a woman near the scene said, her voice trembling as she choked back tears.
"What are we supposed to do, just walk now?"
The consecutive attacks will raise fears of a concerted campaign of violence before the Olympics, which start on February 7 in Sochi, about 690km southwest of Volgograd.
In a video posted on the web in July, the leader of insurgents who want to carve an Islamic state out of the North Caucasus, a string of Muslim provinces south of Volgograd, urged militants to use "maximum force" to prevent the games from being held.
Source: Reuters...More...
DEADLY BLAST HITS RUSSIAN TRAIN KILLING 15
A female suicide bomber has set off a blast in a train station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd killing at least 15 people and injuring at least 34, news reports and officials said.
Regional Interior Ministry spokeswoman Svetlana Smolyaninova told the ITAR-TASS news agency on Sunday that the blast occurred inside the city's main train station at around 12:45pm (08;45 GMT).
Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the nation's top investigative agency, the Investigative Committee, said the suicide bomber detonated her explosives in front of a metal detector.
"When the suicide bomber saw a policeman near a metal detector, she became nervous and set off her explosive device," Markin said in a statement.
He added that the bomb contained about 10 kilograms of TNT explosives, and was rigged with shrapnel.
Source: Al Jazeera...More...,Agency
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