Terror Attack in Moscow: "No cause whatsoever can justify such heinous crimes" Kofi Annan by Secretary-General Kofi Annan 11:07am 7th Feb, 2004   6 February 2004    Annan, Security Council President deplore deadly terror attack in Moscow    United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the current President of the UN Security Council have strongly condemned today's deadly terrorist attack in Moscow. In a statement issued by his spokesman, the Secretary-General said he was "appalled to learn of yet another indiscriminate act of terrorism" perpetrated in the Russian capital.    He pointed out that all of the dozens of innocent people killed and injured in the attack were "merely going about their daily rounds on a rush-hour subway train."    The spokesman stressed the Secretary-General's adamant opposition to all acts of terrorism from whatever quarter. "No cause whatsoever can justify such heinous crimes," he said. The statement also voiced hope that the perpetrators will swiftly be brought to justice, and conveyed Mr. Annan's condolences to the Russian Government and people, as well as the victims' families and friends.    Expressing the outrage of the Security Council, its current President, Ambassador Wang Guangya of China, condemned the Moscow terrorist attack in the "strongest possible" terms.    Saturday, February 7, 2004    "Bomb kills 39 and injures 130 people in Moscow" by Steven Lee Myers. ( New York Times)    A bomb exploded inside a crowded subway train during the morning rush Friday, killing at least 39 people and wounding more than 130 in what officials said was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks linked to the war in Chechnya.    The bomb - said to be hidden inside a backpack or bag - ravaged the second car of the train as it left the Avtozavodskaya station in southeast Moscow and headed toward the city's center at 8:45 a.m. The blast shattered the train's windows, rent its metal seats and bars, and hurled bodies and body parts from the train.    Hundreds of passengers - some of them bloodied and dazed - staggered hundreds of meters through smoke-filled tunnels to reach safety. As they emerged, they described a scene of fear, confusion and carnage deep beneath the heart of the Russian capital.    "I saw five bodies near the tracks and some metal parts," said Anna Kolmykova, 51, who was riding two or three cars behind the one that was struck. Police officers who happened to be in her car helped escort the survivors out.    "Those officers warned us about the bodies and pieces of metal so that we would not stumble," she said, her face smeared with black soot. President Vladimir Putin, appearing with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, responded indirectly, as he did on Dec. 9, when a suicide bomber killed herself and five others in front of the National Hotel, just a short ways from the Kremlin.    Putin did not address the bombing in detail but called for an intensified international effort to combat terrorism. "It is the plague of the 21st century," he said in televised remarks.    It was not immediately clear who placed the bomb on the train - or whether it was a suicide attack - but it was clearly intended to inflict maximum bloodshed and exploit the darkest fears of Muscovites.    Russia has endured a wave of terrorist bombings stemming from the long, bloody war in Chechnya, but never before has so deadly an attack struck the city's subway.    The Metro, as it is called, is the world's busiest with more than eight million passengers a day and is a source of city pride.    "This makes me feel just awful," said Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was aboard the train. "If they are starting to blow up Metro trains, what is next?"    In televised remarks later from the Kremlin, Putin blamed the wave of terror on Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen separatist leader who served as the republic's president from 1997 until the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999.    Maskhadov has denied ordering attacks, and his chief envoy, Akhmed Zakayev, denounced Friday's attack in a telephone interview from London. Zakayev acknowledged, however, that Maskhadov could not control those in Chechnya who would organize attacks. "These actions in Moscow against civilians are in no way of benefit to us," he said.    As he has before, Putin ruled out any talks with Chechnya's separatists, despite calls from Zakayev and others for a negotiated settlement.    "Russia does not negotiate with terrorists," Putin said. "Russia eliminates them." Putin's remarks - at once determined, but also indirect - appeared intended to minimize any political damage from the continued violence and fear that gnaws at the country.    Putin, who rose to power as the second war in Chechnya unfolded, faces re-election on March 14. While he is universally expected to win, he finds himself presiding over a conflict that continues to exact a deadly toll far beyond the battered Chechen republic.    With the bombing Friday, there have been 13 terrorist attacks in the last year, most of them suicide bombings. More than 260 people have died in the attacks, including at least 62 in Moscow itself. Irina Khakamada, a former parliamentary deputy who has launched a quixotic presidential campaign, said that the Kremlin's military and political efforts in Chechnya, including a referendum and presidential elections in the republic last year, had proved ineffective at ending the violence. "The peace process that is under way is not guaranteeing people's security," she said in a radio interview on Ekho Moskvy. As they have after each of the terrorist attacks here, officials announced that they had increased security at airports and at subway and railroad stations across Moscow and in other major cities, including St. Petersburg.    There appears to be little, however, the authorities can do to halt the attacks, especially those carried out by bombers willing to die.    Officials said witnesses reported seeing a man and a woman who appeared to be from the Caucasus, where Chechnya is located, carrying suspicious bags.    It was not clear whether the bombing was a suicide attack, but the authorities later released a composite sketch of the man, suggesting he was not among those killed.    Some politicians called for even tougher measures. Dmitry Rogozin, the new vice speaker of Parliament and a leader of the nationalist party Motherland, called for a state of emergency and suggested that next month's election be postponed. Without referring to Chechens directly, he blamed "an ethnic criminal community" with loyalists in Moscow. "The enemy is here, inside," he told Interfax.    Officials warned that the death toll could still rise. By Friday night, more than 110 people remained hospitalized, some of them with grave injuries.    At Sklifosovsky Hospital, the city's main critical care center, a typed list of 36 of the wounded hung on the front door. The bomb struck on the Green Line, which courses through the city center from northwest to southeast. At rush hour, the subway is always packed, with passengers jostling shoulder to shoulder.    The force of the bomb, estimated at roughly 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds, of dynamite, shredded bodies, complicating the grim task of counting the dead, let alone identifying them.    The survivors were evacuated from the stations on either side of the wrecked train, Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya, pouring out into public squares choked with ambulances and rescue workers.    Kolmykova, the 51-year-old passenger, described people trudging out of the train in darkness with their clothes and hair scorched, but she said there was little panic.The bombing, though, struck a deep chord in her that went beyond simple fear. She said she wanted to emigrate to Italy, which she had visited recently, because Russia had become a country where normal, peaceful life is out of reach.    "I feel so offended for us, for our country," she said. "I want to emigrate not only because of fear. It is a complex of things. Just look at our pensioners. My mother is 77, she is sick and she has to beg for the medicines that she needs and that were prescribed. And in Italy I saw 90-year-olds, happy, laughing and dancing."    The New York Times
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