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December 29, 2013 12:04 pm
Suicide bomber kills at least 12 in Russian city’s rail station
Over a dozen people were killed by an alleged female suicide bomber in Volgograd, the second terrorist attack in the southern Russian city in as many months.
Russia’s antiterrorism committee said the explosion occurred in Volgograd’s main railway station shortly after 12pm (8am GMT) on Sunday. At 10am GMT, Russia’s health ministry estimated at least 50 people had been killed or injured.
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Russia is on high alert for potential attacks in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics, which will be held in February in the resort city of Sochi, located near Russia’s restive Caucasus region.
In July, Doku Umarov, leader of the Caucasus Emirate terror group, urged his followers in a video message to use “maximum force” to disrupt the games.
“They [Russia] plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims, buried on the territory of our land on the Black Sea, and we as the Mujahideen are obliged to not permit that, using any methods allowed us by the almighty Allah,” Mr Umarov said.
Russia’s antiterrorism committee said it believed a female suicide bomber had been responsible for the blast in Volgograd, a city of over 1m located about 700km from Sochi.
The attack comes just two months after a different female bomber set off explosives on a Volgograd public bus on October 21, killing herself and six other passengers.
One month later Russian authorities tracked down the woman’s husband, an explosives expert, in the war-torn Russian republic of Dagestan. Police said he admitted making his wife’s suicide explosive belt during an interrogation before being killed in a fatal shootout.
Known as “black widows”, female suicide bombers are becoming increasingly prevalent in terror attacks on Russian soil, with many of the women believed to be avenging the deaths of family members killed by Russian security forces.
Female suicide bombers from the north Caucasus were responsible for twin explosions in the Moscow metro in March 2010, an attack that killed 39.
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