Investigators suspect it was a bomb planted by a terrorist
THE first pictures from inside the St Petersburg underground made the carnage horribly clear: a metro carriage with its doors blown off their hinges and bloodied bodies strewn across the platform. “I heard a bang, and felt a strong jolt and the smell of gunpowder,” Andrei Shurshev, an eyewitness, told local reporters. Russia’s investigative committee soon confirmed what most had suspected—that the explosion, which killed at least ten and left more than 50 wounded, was being treated as an act of terror. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, who was in town for a meeting with Aleksandr Lukashenko, his Belarusian counterpart, promised that the security services would “do everything to find out the causes of what had happened”.
The bomb went off at around 2.30pm on April 3rd along a central commuter line between the stations of Sennaya Ploshchad and Technologichesky Institute. Eyewitnesses told of passengers attempting to climb out of the carriages through the windows. Law-enforcement sources report that security cameras recorded a man leaving the bomb inside the carriage. Authorities shut down the city metro system, as well as St Petersburg’s international airport. The National Anti-Terror Committee claims to have defused a second bomb at another station in the city.
Although the attack left the country in shock, with condolences dominating social media and St Petersburg taxi drivers offering residents free rides, Russians are no strangers to terrorism. During Mr Putin’s rule, Moscow’s metro system has been hit three times by Islamist groups from the North Caucasus. Two explosions six months apart in 2004 killed a combined 51 people and a pair of suicide-bombers killed another 40 in 2010. A suicide-bomber also attacked Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in 2011, though there have been few attacks outside the North Caucasus since then.
More recently Russia has found itself in the crosshairs of the Islamic State (IS), which declared a holy war on Russia after Mr Putin sent warplanes to Syria. IS-affiliated propaganda outlets released a video threatening Russia with a “sea of blood” in late 2015, shortly after claiming responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger airliner over the Sinai peninsula. Russian-speaking IS fighters have been implicated in terror attacks in Turkey, including the New Year’s assault on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul. Some 9,000 people from Russia and the former Soviet Union have reportedly left to join IS, and officials often warn of the threat they would pose if they returned home. By Monday evening, no one had claimed responsibility for the attack on St Petersburg.
The bomb went off at around 2.30pm on April 3rd along a central commuter line between the stations of Sennaya Ploshchad and Technologichesky Institute. Eyewitnesses told of passengers attempting to climb out of the carriages through the windows. Law-enforcement sources report that security cameras recorded a man leaving the bomb inside the carriage. Authorities shut down the city metro system, as well as St Petersburg’s international airport. The National Anti-Terror Committee claims to have defused a second bomb at another station in the city.
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More recently Russia has found itself in the crosshairs of the Islamic State (IS), which declared a holy war on Russia after Mr Putin sent warplanes to Syria. IS-affiliated propaganda outlets released a video threatening Russia with a “sea of blood” in late 2015, shortly after claiming responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger airliner over the Sinai peninsula. Russian-speaking IS fighters have been implicated in terror attacks in Turkey, including the New Year’s assault on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul. Some 9,000 people from Russia and the former Soviet Union have reportedly left to join IS, and officials often warn of the threat they would pose if they returned home. By Monday evening, no one had claimed responsibility for the attack on St Petersburg.
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