Blast hits Russia security agency
Moscow probes terror after teen suicide attack on FSB; bomber dies in blast, three others wounded; 17-year-old blows himself up in the lobby of FSB security service office
MOSCOW: Russia opened an investigation into suspected terrorism after a 17-year-old youth blew himself up on Wednesday in the lobby of an ofice belonging to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the north of the country.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the unnamed teenager had detonated a homemade bomb in the lobby of the FSB, the country’s main domestic security and intelligence service, in the city of Arkhangelsk. It said he had died on the spot.
Three FSB employees were hospitalised with injuries after the blast in Arkhangelsk. “One man is in surgery,” a spokeswoman for the regional FSB said.
Investigators said they had identiied the teenager as a resident of the city, which is around 1,000 km north of Moscow, but did not name him.
However, an oficial, who spoke to media on condition of anonymity, named the suicide bomber as Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a student at a local technical college.
Investigators probing the attack released a photo of the suspect − a skinny young man with a backpack − inside the FSB building.
Three FSB employees were wounded in the blast, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
It published what it said was a CCTV image of the bomber in the lobby of the building. The picture showed a young man with his right hand inside a bag that he was holding with his left hand.
Russia’s Anti-terrorist Committee said the teenager had removed the bomb from his bag which had then gone off in his hands shortly afterwards, fatally injuring him.
President Vladimir Putin − himself a former FSB oficer − was informed about the explosion, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, but declined to speculate on the motive.
Pictures posted on social media by witnesses after the blast showed what looked like a body lying on the loor outside the FSB building’s heavy wooden entrance doors.
A spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee said the investigation would be handled by Moscow and that Russia’s top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, wanted the teenager’s motive and other details to be established as soon as possible.
Alexander Bastrykin said the young man’s motives should be established “as soon as possible.”
Svetlana Petrenko, the spokeswoman, said the bomber’s lat was being searched and that his friends and close relatives were being questioned.
She said checks would also be carried out to establish whether he was a member of any banned militant group.
Russian media had earlier published an unconfirmed warning posted on social media before the blast by someone purporting to be the bomber. Seven minutes before the blast, a post in an anarchist forum on Telegram, a messaging service, warned that the FSB building would be the target of a “terror attack.”
The writer of the post, who signed as Valeryan Panov, said he would claim responsibility for it.
“The reasons are quite clear to you,” said the post.
“I have decided to do this because the FSB has gone ******* mad. It is inventing cases and torturing people. I will most likely croak in the blast,” he added.
“I wish you a bright future of anarchist communism.” The FSB is the main successor to the feared KGB agency known for persecuting dissidents in the Soviet era.
Earlier this month, an 18-year-old student killed at least 19 people and injured dozens at a college in the Black Sea region of Crimea. He went through the building randomly shooting at fellow pupils before killing himself.