Russia Blames Chechens For Blast

A bomb ripped through a Moscow subway car during rush hour Friday morning, killing 39 people and wounding more than 120. It was the deadliest terrorist assault on the capital since Russia launched its second war in Chechnya.

Russian officials say the explosion likely was a suicide bombing, carried out by rebels from the breakaway region of Chechnya, reports CBS News' Bill Gasperini.

President Vladimir Putin claimed Chechen rebels were behind the blast and said it was aimed at sowing chaos ahead of next month's presidential elections.

"Russia doesn't conduct negotiations with terrorists — it destroys them," Putin said in televised remarks.

President Bush called Putin Friday to express deepest U.S. condolences, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.

A spokesman said Mr. Bush condemns the action in the strongest terms and views it as a tragic loss of life.

Moscow has been on alert following a series of suicide bombings that officials have blamed on Chechen rebels. The latest was in December, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a hotel across from Moscow's Red Square, killing at least five bystanders.

Friday's blast struck the second car of a train after it pulled away from the Avtozavodskaya station, heading northwest on the Moscow metro's busy circle line. After the explosion, the train traveled several hundred more feet before coming to a stop, police spokesman Kirill Mazurin said in a TV interview.

The blast was equivalent to 11 pounds of TNT, said Deputy Mayor Valery Shantsev.

The Interfax news agency cited unidentified police sources as saying the attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber, and reported authorities have a videotape of the suspected attacker and her alleged accomplice standing on a platform before boarding the train.

But Shantsev said investigators had not found shrapnel, which usually fills suicide bombers' explosives. He said that the bomb had likely been in a suitcase or backpack on the floor of the subway car, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Valery Draganov, a member of parliament representing the Avtozavodskaya district, told Echo of Moscow radio that body parts were scattered along the tracks. Inside the badly damaged train, bodies sat side-by-side still in their seats, and covered in soot.

The line where the explosion occurred is one of Moscow's deepest underground, and the wounded were brought up on stretchers on the long escalators to ambulances crowded outside the entrance to the Avtozavodskaya station, southeast of downtown Moscow.

Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said at least 39 people were killed, and 122 were hospitalized including one child.

More than 700 people were evacuated from two metro stations, ITAR-Tass reported. Most Muscovites are dependent on public transportation, and trains are usually packed during rush hour.

"I heard a loud sound like a large firecracker and smoke filled the car," said Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was riding several cars away from the blast. "What are our country and government and police going to do when they blow up crowded subway cars?"

An unidentified woman, blood covering her face, told NTV television that passengers were unable to open the door of the subway car for a time after the explosion. After finally prying open the door, she said they walked more than a mile out of the tunnel.

"It's scary to live here," said Galina Abramova, a passenger on a train that was coming in the opposite direction when the explosion occurred.

Police barricaded the two stations closest to the train and stopped all traffic on the entire line. Dozens of buses were rerouted to carry the passengers evacuated from the subway, clogging streets.

U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow condemned the attack and said the United States was ready to offer assistance if requested. Condemnations also poured in from European capitals and former Soviet republics.

Putin appealed to the international community to boost its efforts to fight terrorism, which he called "this plague of the 21st century."

Putin said the explosion was also linked with the March 14 presidential election, which he is expected to win easily, and intended to put "pressure on the present head of state."

Russia has been fighting an insurgency in Chechnya for most of the last decade. The most flamboyant surviving rebel leader, Shamil Basayev, is credited with creating a special battalion of female bombers known as black widows.

Putin blamed Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov.

"We know for sure that Maskhadov and his bandits are linked to this terror," he said.

Maskhadov, through a spokesman, denied any involvement. The spokesman, Akhmed Zakayev, told The Associated Press that "the Chechen government condemns terrorism in every form and manner," but he criticized current Kremlin policy for creating the conditions that allegedly prompt such acts.

In addition to the December blast outside the National Hotel, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Moscow rock concert last July, killing themselves and 14 other people. Five days later, an aborted suicide bomb attack at a central Moscow restaurant killed a disposal expert who was trying to defuse the bomb. The woman who had carried the bomb was arrested and is awaiting trial.

A bombing in a Moscow subway car in June 1996 killed four people, and another injured at least nine in a busy metro station in February 2001.

In August 2000, a bomb exploded at a crowded pedestrian underpass at Pushkin Square, a popular meeting place near several metro stations in the heart of Moscow. The attack was initially blamed on Chechen rebels, but some police later said that a turf battle between rival businessmen or criminal gangs could have been the motive.