Police: Tajik blast victim was in quarrel
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-11 08:53

An explosive device that killed a woman on a street in Tajikistan's capital was placed in her handbag by a former boyfriend, police said Monday.

The blast occurred Sunday about 150 yards from the headquarters of the Emergency Situations Ministry, the site of two bomb attacks this year.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khudoinazar Asoyev said Monday that the 25-year-old woman's former boyfriend threw a grenade into her bag as they were walking together down the street. He said the man, who was lightly injured in the blast, had confessed.

In January, a bomb-laden car blew up outside the Emergency Situations Ministry building in Dushanbe, killing the driver and wounding three. Three people were detained on suspicion of terrorism, but authorities did not reveal a suspected motive.

In June, an explosive that authorities said had been carried in a wheelbarrow detonated outside the same ministry, damaging cars and shattering windows in nearby buildings but causing no injuries. A man accused of bringing the device to the building was detained.

Impoverished Tajikistan suffered five years of civil war between pro-Moscow and Islamic forces, which ended in 1997 with a U.N.-brokered power-sharing agreement. The country is a main channel for drugs transported from neighboring Afghanistan to Russia and Europe.