Blast Aftermath In Chechnya

The death toll in last week's suicide bombing of the Chechen government headquarters rose to 80 on Monday, Russia's state-controlled ORT television reported, as the region began observing three days of mourning.

Citing Chechnya's Moscow-backed government, ORT said that 152 people were injured in the attack Friday, when suicide bombers rammed two explosives-filled trucks into the government compound in the capital Grozny. Some of the victims have been evacuated to Moscow and other cities to ease the burden on Grozny's overwhelmed hospitals.

A top Russian prosecutor called Sunday for the dismissal of security officials in Chechnya after the bombing. Rescue workers Sunday gave up the search for survivors.

Friday's bombing dealt a severe blow to Moscow's efforts to show the war in Chechnya is winding down.

Officials said Saturday that three suicide bombers used Russian military uniforms, IDs, and license plates to drive their explosives-laden trucks through security checkpoints in Grozny.

"All of them were of Slavic appearance and spoke Russian without an accent," Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Tsakayev told the Interfax news agency.

Once past the security checkpoints, the trucks burst through the final gates to the compound and exploded, destroying two buildings.

The attack on the headquarters, one of the most heavily guarded spots in Chechnya, has raised questions about the servicemen charged with keeping the peace in the war-ruined region — where rebels continue to inflict daily casualties on Russian forces.

Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky told NTV television that he recommended the military command in Chechnya dismiss the city's commandant and the commandant in charge of guarding the government compound.

"In the coming days, charges will be brought against specific guilty parties, who allowed violations and let trucks filled with explosives on to the guarded territory," Fridinsky said.

Moscow claims international terrorists, teamed with Chechen separatists, were behind the bombings.

A spokesman for Russian forces in Chechnya, Col. Ilya Shabalkin, said that Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev and an Arab militant, Abu al-Walid, ordered the attack, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Shabalkin said Basayev and al-Walid, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, met with other rebels in the Nozhai-Yurt region of Chechnya before the bombing and al-Walid urged the rebels to carry out major terrorist acts in Grozny and other regional centers in Chechnya.

Yasser el-Sirri, of the London-based Islamic Observation Center, said the Saudi-born al-Walid became a leading rebel commander in Chechnya after the death of Arab warlord Omar Ibn al Khattab. Al-Walid's real name is Abdel Aziz al-Ghamidi, he said.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood denied involvement in the attack. The group has been a vocal supporter of the Chechen separatists but says its own methods are peaceful.

Shabalkin, like other Russian officials, also implicated Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in the Grozny bombing. A Maskhadov spokesman denied the rebel leader played any role.

Russian troops left Chechnya in 1996 after a disastrous 20-month campaign against the rebels. They returned in 1999 after rebel raids in a neighboring region and a series of apartment-house bombings that killed more than 300 people.

Moscow's war effort in Chechnya has earned it rebuke from international human rights activists. The United States has also urged a softer touch, but recently has more vocally supported President Vladimir Putin's policy there, in part because elements of al Qaeda have been linked to the Chechen dispute.