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Plane crashes terror attacks
30/08/2004 18:10 - (SA)
Moscow - Russia announced on Monday that two planes which crashed with the loss of 90 lives were brought down by terrorist attacks, as mystery continued to surround the roles of two Chechen women killed in the disasters.
This was the first time the Russian authorities had blamed both the tragedies last week on extremists, even though they had already confirmed traces of explosives were found in the burned-out wreckage of the two planes.
"Today we can say with the utmost certainty that both planes were destroyed as the result of terrorist acts," said security service spokesperson Andrei Fetisov.
Russian officials have carefully held back from singling out any groups or individuals that could be responsible, even though the media have portrayed two women from Chechnya as the likely perpetrators.
Attention has been focussed on passengers Amnat Nagayeva, 30, and Satsita Jebirkhanova, 37, as no relatives of either have yet come forward to claim their remains and they booked their tickets at the last moment.
Russian officials have said the remains of two females believed to be Nagayeva and Jebirkhanova were also being closely scrutinised because they were far more damaged and widely scattered at the crash sites than others.
The daily Izvestia said the pair were friends who shared a flat in the Chechen capital Grozny and disappeared from the Caucasus in the company of two other women two days before the planes went down.
It said that the women were last seen at a bus station in Khasavyurt, a city in neighbouring Dagestan, where they boarded a bus and departed for an unknown destination.
The readiness of the media to point the finger at the women reflects considerable nervousness over Chechen female suicide bombers, who have carried out deadly attacks at a rock concert and on a pavement close to the Kremlin over the past year.
Chechnya remains Russia's worst internal trouble-spot, with its thousands of troops in the Muslim republic still bogged down in a guerrilla conflict that began over a decade ago.
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