Russian authorities seek 2 suspects in railroad blast

[Aptrgangr]

Russian authorities seek 2 suspects in railroad blast

MOSCOW: Russian investigators issued composite sketches Tuesday of two suspects in a bombing that derailed a passenger train between Moscow and St. Petersburg, injuring scores of passengers and shutting down rail services on one of Russia's busiest rail lines.

No one was killed by the blast, which occurred Monday night, or by the derailment of the train, called the Nevsky Express, but at least six people were seriously injured. The authorities suggested that passengers had been spared from worse injury in part by luck.

The bomb exploded near a section of track that passed over a road.
The train cars left the tracks and slid onto on their sides without any of them falling down the steep slope or from the overpass to the road below.
At least 60 of the more than 230 people on board the train were injured, the authorities said. One railway official said on national television that 90 people had been treated for injuries.

The authorities described the bomb as a homemade device that weighed a little more than two kilograms, or five pounds, but they issued few other details, citing the requirements of an ongoing investigation. The Associated Press reported that prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation.
Russia has suffered terrorist attacks since the mid-1990s, often conducted by Chechen separatists and by Islamic militants from other regions in the Caucasus with links to them.

The acts have included train and passenger airplane bombings, suicide bombings and mass hostage-taking, including in a hospital, a theater and a school.
But the attacks have declined in frequency and scale since late 2004, mirroring a general reduction in the pace and intensity of guerrilla fighting in Russia's southwest.
Fighting has simmered again in recent weeks, however, as it often does in summer. Russia has been conducting sweep operations in Ingushetia, a republic adjacent to Chechnya, and its forces have been suffering casualties almost every day.
No one took responsibility for the latest blast; Web sites with connections to the separatists posted news accounts of the blast, but did not issue statements from the separatists.

The authorities said they had opened a terrorism investigation, and that counterterrorist measures would be strengthened ahead of the parliamentary elections, scheduled for late this year, and the presidential election next spring.
"The threat of extremism and terrorism has not been completely eliminated," Nikolai Patrushev, director of the FSB, a successor agency of the Soviet KGB, said at a meeting of the National Antiterrorist Committee, according to Interfax.
The derailment occurred near Malaya Vishera in the Novgorod region, about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, southeast of St. Petersburg. Roughly 800 meters, or half a mile, of track was damaged as the train cars slid from the rails, and service was indefinitely stopped in both directions.
Passengers and relatives crowded the Leningradsky Station in Moscow on Tuesday, waiting for services to resume. The southbound service from St. Petersburg was expected to be restored first.
There are 26 daily trains between the Moscow and St. Petersburg, and others that run on certain days.

One woman at the station said she had no doubt the bombing was a terrorist attack. "Of course I'm scared," she said. "It doesn't matter, plane or train, they are all dangerous these days."
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.

Russian authorities seek 2 suspects in railroad blast - International Herald Tribune