Female suicide bomber injures 12 in Russian Caucasus
Assailant blows herself up in a central square in Dagestan, a hot spot near Chechnya where the Boston bombers once lived
The bomber detonated an explosives-laden
belt in the central square in the provincial capital, Makhachkala,
Dagestan’s police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov said.
The bomber was identified as Madina Alieva,
who married an Islamist who was killed in 2009 and then wedded another
Islamic radical who was gunned down last year, police spokeswoman Fatina
Ubaidatova said.
Since 2000, at least two dozen women, most of
them from the Caucasus, have carried out suicide bombings in Russian
cities and aboard trains and planes. All were linked to an Islamic
insurgency that spread throughout Dagestan and the predominantly Muslim
Caucasus region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.
The bombers are often called “black widows” in
Russia because many are the widows, or other relatives, of militants
killed by security forces. Islamic militants are believed to convince
“black widows” that a suicide bombing will reunite them with their dead
relatives beyond the grave.
Police said two of the people injured in the
attack were in a critical condition. There were no details about the
injured children.
The Tsarnaev brothers suspected of carrying
out last month’s Boston marathon bombings, are ethnic Chechens who lived
in Dagestan before moving to the United States. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the
elder brother who was killed a shootout with police days after the April
15 bombings, spent six months in Dagestan in 2012.
Dagestan remains an epicenter of violence in the confrontation between radical Islamists and federal forces.
This week, a double explosion in Makhachkala
killed four civilians and left 44 injured, while three security officers
and three suspected militants have been killed in other incidents.
Islamists strive to create an independent
Muslim state, or “emirate,” in the Caucasus and parts of southern Russia
with a sizable Muslim population.
Although Chechen separatists were battered
almost a decade ago, Islamists continue to move through the region’s
mountains and forests with comparative ease despite security sweeps by
federal forces and police under the control of local leaders loyal to
the Kremlin.
Human rights groups say that abductions,
torture and extrajudicial killings of young men suspected of militant
links by Russian security forces have helped swell the rebels’ ranks.
Caucasus experts say that Islamists routinely extort money from
government officials and businessmen and attack or kill those who refuse
to pay.
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