Moscow suicide attacks kill at least 34

Moscow: Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on packed metro trains in central Moscow’s morning rush hour Monday, killing at least 34 people in the deadlist attacks in the Russian capital for over a decade, authorities said.

The first explosion struck at 7:52 am on a train that had stopped in the Lubyanka station close to the headquarters of the FSB security service, an emergency ministry spokeswoman told AFP. About half an hour later, a second explosion went off in a carriage of a train on the platform at the Park Kulturi metro station, also in central Moscow.

Moscow authorities said the attacks were caused by female suicide bombers wearing belts packed with explosives.

“We can assume that belts with explosive devices were attached to their bodies,” Moscow’s chief prosecutor Yuri Syomin told reporters on Lubyanka Square, next to the metro station of the same name.

The emergency situations ministry said the blast at the Lubyanka station killed 22 people and wounded 12. The second at Park Kulturi station left 12 dead and seven wounded.

Syomin said at least 19 people were killed in the first explosion and 14 in the second.

“These are not the definitive tolls yet, but at the moment it is time to concentrate on saving lives,” he said.An FSB spokesman said the attackers appeared to have been women.

“According to preliminary information, both blasts have been executed by female suicide bombers,” he told AFP.

Rescue workers rushed to the scene but the ITAR-TASS news agency said they were held up by morning rush hour traffic.

Dozens of orange and red trucks from the emergency services and fire department collected at Lubyanka Square, an AFP correspondent reported.

An emergency services helicopter also flew into the Square, home to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the notorious Soviet KGB secret police.

Moscow, Monday, AFP