Russia Says Finds Chechen Suicide Bomber Base
Russian justice officials on Friday claimed a major success against Chechnya’s suicide bombers, raiding a guerrilla hideaway outside Moscow in an operation that they said had averted imminent bomb attacks. The General Prosecutor’s office in Moscow said explosive belts — the deadly devices that Chechen women bombers strap around themselves in attacks — had been found in an overnight search at a wooden shack outside the capital. “Today we have averted at least five possible terrorist acts,” Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. The breakthrough followed a bomb attack at an open-air rock festival in Moscow on July 5 in which two women, said to be Chechens, blew themselves up, killing 14 people and themselves. A 15th victim died Thursday. Like a rebel theater siege last October, that attack brought the far-off Chechnya conflict to the heart of Moscow. The latest attack put the city on summer terror alert. Full Story