Obscure Chechen group takes responsibility; two women bought
tickets at last minute, bodies unclaimed
The Russian government
has confirmed what everyone else either suspected or knew:
terrorists were responsible for the near simultaneous crashes of
two Russian airliners on Friday.
An obscure group calling themselves the "Islambouli Brigades"
published a statement on Saturday on the web taking responsibility
for the crashes, claiming that they were retaliation for the
ongoing Russia-Chechnya war and warning that more attacks are on
the way. "Russia's slaughtering of Muslims is continuing and will
only stop when a bloody war is launched," the statement said. The
group claimed that five members of their group were aboard each
plane, but so far, the facts do not seem to support the
statement.
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) investigators examining
the wrecks of the two aircraft found traces of the explosive
"hexogen." According to Russian authorities, this is the same
explosive that was used in the 1999 apartment building bombings
that were also tied to Chechen rebels. Chechen rebel leader Aslan
Maskhadov has denied responsibility for the crashes through
spokespersons.
The FSB has also disclosed that two women with Chechen-sounding
names, Amanta Nagayeva and S. Dzhebirkhanova, individually bought
tickets at the last minute for the flights, and that both women's
bodies are the only ones that have not been claimed by family
members. Nagayeva, a Chechen native, had bought her ticket about an
hour before her flight departed, and was seated at the rear of the
Tu-154 airliner. That portion of the aircraft was severed from the
fuselage.
Dzhebirkhanova was supposed to fly to the Black Sea resort of
Sochi, where President Putin was vacationing at the time. However,
she changed her flight at the last minute to the other Tu-134 that
crashed.
FSB spokesman Nikolai Zakharov said investigators had "defined a
circle of individuals possibly involved in conducting the terrorist
act," but did not expand on the statement. President Vladimir
Putin, however, had nothing to say on the news of the discovery of
explosives traces, most likely because of the loss of prestige that
this terrorist attack has caused for his government. One major
newspaper has already called the attack Russia's September 11.
Finally, Russian news media have disclosed that six drunk
holiday fliers were denied boarding on one of the flights that
crash, and are alive today because of that. Six young men were
scheduled to travel on the Sibir Airlines Tu-154 that crashed near
Rostov-on-Don. The airline refused to allow them to board because
they appeared to be drunk.
FMI: www.fsb.ru (Russian
Federal Security Service official web site, in Russian), http://babelfish.altavista.com
(Altavista web page translation service, Russian to English
available)