		Moscow mourns metro blast victims

		Текст: Gazeta.Ru, Reuters, Interfax Фото: AFP According to the latest reports, 39 people were killed and more than 120 injured after a powerful blast tore through a packed carriage on the Moscow metro on Friday morning. Over 100 survivors of the attack are still in hospital. The Moscow authorities have declared Monday an official day of mourning. The first funerals of the blast victims will be held later today.

Russian security forces launched a massive manhunt on Saturday for the perpetrators of Friday’s bomb attack. Police threw up a security cordon around Moscow and stepped up document checks on the streets. They also published a composite picture of a man they said was a suspect and briefly detained two men who bore a resemblance to the photofit.

In the meantime, over 100 survivors of the attack are still receiving treatment in hospitals across the city. At 6 a.m. on Monday there were 105 survivors in hospital, the city health department told Interfax. One of them was in a critical condition; 17 in a grave condition; 46 in a condition of medium gravity and 41 in a stable condition. In the two days following the blast 11 people were discharged.

Hundreds of Muscovites queued up to donate blood for the injured. Yevgeny Savenkov told Reuters after giving blood at a clinic: ''I have got a little child, a wife and many brothers. When I imagine that this could happen to them, I felt unwell. That's why I decided to come here.''

Dozens of passers-by gathered on Saturday to lay flowers at the entrances of the two stations linked by the tunnel where the blast took place. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov ordered a day of mourning in the capital on Monday when the dead will be buried and warned that the death toll may rise.

''Unfortunately the number of victims of the terrorist attack may still rise, since 14 people in city hospitals were critically injured in the attack and a further 24 were seriously hurt,'' Luzhkov told reporters on Saturday.

Moscow's deputy prosecutor Vladimir Yudin said 20 of the dead had been identified, but added that he thought the number known to have died so far was unlikely to rise significantly. ''Judging by the evidence we possess, including (body) fragments of people who were killed, we have no reason to believe that the number of those killed is significantly more than (39),'' he told Interfax news agency.

Putin told reporters there was no doubt fugitive Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov had masterminded the attack. ''We do not need any indirect confirmation. We know for certain that Maskhadov and his bandits are linked to this terrorism,'' he said shortly after the blast. ''I do not rule out that this could be used both in debates taking place in the Russian presidential election and as a lever to put pressure on the current head of state.''

But the separatists strongly denied their involvement. A spokesman for the fugitive Chechen leader said neither Maskhadov nor his separatist government were ''connected to this bloody provocation and (they) unequivocally condemn it''.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the attack is continuing. According to the main theory being examined by investigators, the blast was carried out by a suicide bomber who was inside the second carriage of the metro train, when the explosion occurred. At the same time, investigators are looking at the possibility of the explosive device being set off by remote control.

A special investigative team has been set up to conduct the probe, Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin, who has been appointed the head of the operational headquarters for investigating the act of terrorism, told the press.

This latest tragedy in Moscow has again drawn the public’s attention to the unsolved problems of Chechnya. Putin has shunned talks with Chechen rebels who disagree with his peace plan – based on a referendum last year entrenching Chechnya firmly within Russia, and the subsequent election of a pro-Moscow president.

Fighting terrorism, he said, meant an ''unconditional rejection of any dialogue with terrorists as any contacts... only encourage them to commit ever bloodier crimes. Russia does not hold negotiations with terrorists, it destroys them.'' Chechnya could become an election issue, though most parties, a few liberals apart, broadly back Putin's stance.

''It is clear that whoever committed this terrorist act wanted to destabilise the situation ahead of the presidential elections,'' left-wing nationalist and presidential candidate Sergei Glazyev told a debate on NTV television. ''The main target is the president and we ought not to attack state authority, which is what they achieved today. But it must be said that the authorities do not defend us the way they should.''

Recent attacks in Moscow by Chechen separatists include a suicide bomb last December a short distance from the Kremlin which killed six people. Last July, two Chechen women blew themselves up at an outdoor music festival, killing 14 other people. A total of 129 people, among hundreds held hostage for three days in a Moscow theatre, were killed in October 2002 when security forces used a toxic gas to storm the building.

09 ФЕВРАЛЯ 12:05

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Moscow mourns metro blast victims