07/07/2003

Putin pledges to root out Chechen terrorists

Russian President Vladamir Putin has vowed action to dig out Chechen terrorists wherever they are hiding, following Saturday's bomb attack at a rock festival in Moscow in which 15 people were killed.

President Putin was reported in the Russian press as saying the rebels would be rooted out of where they were hiding and “destroyed”.

Memorial services were held yesterday in Moscow for those killed in the terrorist attack, the first of its kind in the Russian capital.

The two blasts, 15 minutes apart, killed 15 people and injured over 50 people, many of them seriously, as the explosions ripped through the crowd attending the Krylya music festival in northern Moscow.

Though the attack has not been claimed by any organisation, the Russian Interior Ministry have laid the blame on Chechen rebels. It was reported that a Chechen passport was found on one of the bomber's bodies and that the devices used were of a type similar to those used previously in Chechnya.

UK Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell condemned the attack as a “horrific and indiscriminate attack on innocent people”. He said: "Terrorism in all its forms has no place in a civilised society and my heartfelt sympathy goes out to the victims and to their families.

"We are actively seeking further information and to establish the safety of any British nationals who may have been there."

Last October, 41 terrorists and 129 hostages were killed when Russian security forces pumped what is thought to be a powerful anaesthetic gas into a Moscow theatre in a bid to end a siege of the building by Chechen rebels.

(SP)

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