Russia Touts Progress in Bombings Investigation

Six months after nighttime bombs killed more than 300 sleeping Russians, security officials insisted Thursday that a ring of Chechen terrorists is to blame and that they are making progress in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Investigators from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, staged a rare news conference and distributed photos of suspects they believe set off the bombs in September. The attacks triggered Moscow’s fierce offensive to regain control of Chechnya, a rebel Russian republic.

The investigators identified six men as taking part in the bombings--one who is in custody and five others for whom they have issued international arrest warrants. But the FSB officials acknowledged that, although they believe these men carried out the bombings, they have yet to determine who ordered the attacks.

“I believe we will eventually prove with the help of the evidence that we are accumulating that everything emanated from a single center, a single organizer,” said Nikolai Sapozhkov, deputy chief of investigations.

The four apartment-building bombings--two in Moscow and two in southern Russia--set off a wave of panic throughout the country. Government officials immediately blamed Chechens and within days began a furious assault in the republic.

Since then, rumors have persisted that the secret services were themselves behind the bombing campaign, using it as a pretext to resume hostilities in Chechnya, where Russia fought to a stalemate in a 1994-96 war. Acting President Vladimir V. Putin, who launched the new war and was head of the FSB until a short time before the blasts began, last week denounced the rumors as “raving madness.”

“There is nobody in the Russian special services capable of committing such a crime against our own people,” Putin said in excerpts of an interview published by the Kommersant Daily newspaper. “It is immoral even to consider such a possibility. In fact, this is nothing but an element of the information war against Russia.”

The FSB officials said the man in custody, identified as Ruslan Magayayev, leased a truck that was used to transport explosives to Moscow. The other five suspects are accused of moving the explosives, disguised as sacks of sugar, into the apartment buildings and setting up the detonators.

Sapozhkov said he believes that the fugitives are hiding in the few areas of Chechnya still in rebel hands. “Hostilities in Chechnya will probably end soon,” he said, “and they won’t be able to hide much longer.”

Much of the evidence presented at the news conference was circumstantial. Investigators described a so-called “bomb factory” discovered in the Chechen town of Urus-Martan, where they found explosives and timing devices similar to those used in the Moscow bombs.

“In all cases, the same devices were used, the same explosives were used,” said Alexander Shagako, first deputy chief of the agency’s detective directorate. He claimed that the FSB had managed to foil at least six other bomb attempts in Moscow alone.

In recent months, Russian media reports have grown increasingly critical of the official explanation for the bombings.

Some of the reports have focused attention on an incident in the central city of Ryazan, where vigilant residents discovered a timing device and sacks of sugar in the basement of their apartment house. Although local police said the sacks tested positive for explosives, the FSB in Moscow insisted that the incident was nothing more than a drill.

This week, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that a paratrooper on guard duty at a weapons warehouse outside Ryazan last fall discovered piles of sacks labeled sugar. He opened one of the bags and tried to use the white powder to sweeten his tea, only to recoil at the taste. An explosives expert called to examine the bags declared that they contained hexogen, an explosive believed to have been used in the Moscow bombings.

“Why were so many sugar sacks, stuffed with hexogen, being stored at a military base?” the newspaper asked. “Were they planning more drills? Or had they already taken place?”

Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubuv insisted Thursday that the war in Chechnya is drawing to a close. But fierce fighting continued in two rebel strongholds: the village of Komsomolskoye, near the capital, Grozny, and the mountain village of Sharo-Argun. The rebels’ Web site (https://www.kavkaz.org) reported that they were rebuffing the Russian attacks.