Suspected Bombers Arrested

Suspects in a string of bombings in southern Russia that killed at least 21 people - the worst violence in the region in months - have been arrested, according to a top security official. Authorities are seeking at least six others as well.

CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports Russia's Security Council Chief, Sergei Ivanov, is blaming Chechen rebels for all three bombings.

"Until we return life to normal in Chechnya, there will always be terrorist acts," says Ivanov.

Russia has been embroiled in a long and bloody war with rebels in Chechnya, who are fighting to become an independent nation.

Three cars rigged with bombs exploded almost simultaneously Saturday in three towns near Chechnya.

The most deadly explosion occurred near a bustling farmer's market in the city of Mineralnye Vody. Nineteen people were killed in that morning blast, caused by a car bomb detonated by remote control, according to Col. Alexander Lemeshev, duty officer for the Emergency Situations Ministry in the northern Caucasus.

Seventy victims remained hospitalized Sunday, eight in critical condition, according to Col. Viktor Shkareda.

At about the same time, two Interior Ministry inspectors were killed in a car bombing on a highway near the village of Adyge-Khabl in the Karachayevo-Cherkessia region.

A third bomb was detonated near the entrance to a traffic police station in the nearby town of Yessentuki in the Stavropol region, injuring 13 people, police said.

In each case, small Zhiguli sedans were stuffed with explosives, police said.

"We can already say that these three crimes were connected, there have been arrests," Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the main anti-terrorist agency, said on NTV television. "These are people who have information about how this terrorist attack was prepared."

Police released sketches based on witness accounts of six men wanted in the attacks.

Mineralnye Vody, Yessentuki and Adyge-Khabl are located within 100 miles to the northwest of Chechnya. They are about 180 miles southeast of the city of Rostov-on-Don.

Russian officials blamed rebels in Chechnya, but no evidence was immediately offered. Patrushev pointed toward rebel commander Khattab, who uses only one name.

"One of the versions that will be dominant is that these terrorist acts have been carried out by Khattab's band," he said on ORT government television.

Rebel Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov released a statement Sunday denying any role.

"We are not fighting with civilians. We conduct a guerrilla war with the occupiers," Maskhadov's statement said. "We have nothing to do with the criminal structures of Russia and do not fight with women, old men, children and civilians."

Several bombs have hit southern Russia in recent months, but the casualty toll in Saturday's violence was the highest since a string of apartment bombings in September 1999 round the country that killed about 300 people.

The Kremlin blamed Chechen rebels for the blasts.

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