Russia bombing called radical Islam'suicide'

St. Petersburg - A blast in a St Petersburg train carriage on Monday that killed 11 people and injured 45 was carried out by a suspected suicide bomber with ties to radical Islamists, Russia's Interfax news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the city when the blast struck, visited the scene of the explosion late on Monday night and laid a bunch of red flowers at a makeshift shrine to the victims.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the bombing in St. Petersburg subway, saying that those responsible for the attack should be held accountable.

"The secretary-general condemns today's bombing in the St. Petersburg metro," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing at the UN headquarters in New York.

"He extends his deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and the people of the Russian Federation," Dujarric said. "Those responsible for this appalling act must be held accountable."

Witnesses said they saw passengers who were bloodied and burned spilling out of the train, whose door was buckled by the force of the explosion, and lying on a platform while smoke filled the station.

Russia has in the past experienced bomb attacks carried out by Islamist rebels from Russia's North Caucasus region. The rebellion there has been largely crushed, but Russia's military intervention in Syria has now made it a potential target for Islamic State attacks, security experts say.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Officials said they were treating the blast as an act of terrorism, but there was no official confirmation of any link to Islamist radicals.

Earlier, Russian media had broadcast closed circuit television footage of a bearded man they said was being sought by police as a suspect. But Interfax reported that the man had come forward and been eliminated from inquiries.

The news agency, quoting an unnamed law enforcement source, said that human remains examined at the scene suggested that the blast had been carried out by a suicide bomber. It said the police had identified a suspect with links to radical Islamist groups banned in Russia.

Two years ago, the Islamic State group said it brought down a plane carrying Russian tourists home from a Red Sea resort. All 224 people on board the flight were killed.

Soon after the blast happened at 2:40 pm, ambulances and fire engines descended on the concrete-and-glass Sennaya Ploshchad station. One helicopter hovered overhead and then landed on a broad avenue to take away an injured passenger.

"I saw a lot of smoke, a crowd making its way to the escalators, people with blood and other people's insides on their clothes, bloody faces," St Petersburg resident Leonid Chaika, who said he was at the station where the blast happened, told Reuters by phone. "Many were crying."

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said an explosive device had been found at another station, hidden in a fire extinguisher, but had been defused.

The blast raised security fears beyond Russian frontiers. France, which has itself suffered a series of attacks, announced additional security measures in Paris.

Video from the scene showed injured people lying bleeding on a platform, some being treated by emergency services and fellow passengers. Others ran away from the platform amid clouds of smoke, some screaming or holding their hands to their faces.

A huge hole was blasted in the side of a carriage and the door blown off, with metal wreckage strewn across the platform. Passengers were seen hammering at the windows of one closed carriage after the train had pulled into the station.

Russian TV said many had suffered lacerations from glass shards and metal, the force of the explosion amplified by the confines of the carriage and the tunnel.

Reuters

(China Daily USA 04/04/2017 page4)