Bomb Blast in Russia's North Ossetia Region

by Ese Omofoma
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia - Russian authorities said Friday that the death toll from the North Ossetian suicide blast has risen to 12. Investigators believe that the suicide bomber may have been female.

Thursday's blast struck a minibus in Vladikavkaz, the capital of Russia's North Ossetia.  The explosion occurred when the vehicle was unloading passengers at a market. Officials said 41 people were injured.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Federal Security Service and the Investigation Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office to launch an investigation, the Kremlin Web site said.

He also told the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry to increase security in the region.

"This event showed that a terrorist threat remains. We can't let down our guard. Although terrorist acts have been suppressed, the environment for such crimes exists," Medvedev said in remarks broadcast on television.

Russia's chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, ruled out any link with Georgia, which lies just to the south of Vladikavkaz.

Bastrykin hinted instead at a link with the Russian region of Ingushetia that borders North Ossetia.

The two ethnic groups, Ossetian and Ingush, have had strained relations since fighting a brief war at the time of the 1991 Soviet collapse.

"There are two main versions: destabilization of the situation in the Caucasus as a whole and the second, a return to the Ossetian-Ingush conflict," said Bastrykin.

Security forces had strengthened control at the regional border between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Everyone crossing it was being subjected to checks, local interior ministry spokeswoman Alla Akhpolova told AFP.

"All crossing points on the administrative border with Ingushetia are being strengthened. Interior ministry forces have been instructed to check everyone who comes or goes from Ingushetia, however indignant they may be," she said.

The Kommersant newspaper drew a link between Thursday's attack and a series of kidnappings it said had taken place close to the spot near the market where Thursday's blast occurred, saying the bomb could have been revenge.

Russian troops and police officers continue to be killed on a weekly basis by insurgents in the Caucasus region, mostly in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. 

Chechnya has experienced two full-scale wars since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

For more information, please see:

CNN - Death toll from North Ossetia suicide bomb rises to 12 - 7 November 2008

IHT - Death toll in Russian bomb blast reaches 12 - 7 November 2008

Reuters - Russia's Medvedev urges vigilance after bomb blast - 7 November 2008