Six killed in suicide bomb attack on a bus

A femAle suicide bomber yesterday blew herself up on a bus in southern Russia, killing at least six people in the deadliest such blast outside the volatile North Caucasus region in nearly three years.

The bombing in Volgograd was likely to raise fears of further attacks by Islamist militants as Russia prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in february in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, not far from the mainly muslim North Caucasus.

The attack, which investigators blamed on a 30-year-old woman from Dagestan, the North Caucasus province at the centre of an insurgency, also wounded 32 people, of whom eight were in critical condition, the federal investigative committee said.

State television showed footage, taken from a camera mounted on a driver’s dashboard, of an explosion ripping through the bus as it travelled along a treelined road, sending shards of metal and glass flying.

“There was a blast – a bang – all the glass flew out of the windows,” an eyewitness named Ivan told state-run Rossiya-24 television. “The cloud of smoke quickly dissipated and then I saw people start to fall out and run out to escape the bus. It was a horrible sight.”

Citing a regional investigative source, the Interfax news agency said identity documents belonging to the suspected bomber were found near the site, and that she was believed to have been the wife of an Islamist militant. The federal investigative committee named the suspect as Naida Asiyalova, 30, of Dagestan.

Committee spokesman Vladimir markin said: “This woman got on the bus at one of the stops and the explosion occurred almost immediately afterwards. This was confirmed by the surviving passengers.”