Car Bombs in Towns Near Chechnya Kill 21

Three car bomb blasts in Russia’s volatile southern region near Chechnya killed 21 people and wounded more than 140 Saturday--actions that Russian authorities almost immediately blamed on Chechen separatist guerrillas.

Two bombs exploded minutes apart, shortly after 10 a.m., at a crowded market in the spa town of Mineralnye Vody and near a police station in Yessentuki, about 15 miles away. The third blast, which killed two police officers, occurred earlier near the village of Adyge-Khabl in the adjacent Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic. All three sites are within 60 miles of the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Major bomb attacks occur sporadically in southern Russia--and authorities acknowledge that there is little they can do to prevent them. In September 1999, Russian officials blamed Chechens for the bombings of four apartment buildings that killed hundreds and triggered Russia’s renewed war with the rebels.

In Mineralnye Vody, bodies were scattered over the road amid debris from the explosion. The remains of severely damaged cars lay about, and nearby shop windows were blown out.

“This is really barbaric. It is terrorism pure and simple,” said Roman Kostenko, chief of the analytical department of the organized crime directorate in the Caucasus region.

“Whoever did it was aiming for as many casualties as possible. The central market on a Saturday morning--the most crowded place in town. The terrorists knew what they were doing,” he said.

Sergei Piskaryov, head of the intensive care unit at Mineralnye Vody hospital, said it was the toughest day in his medical career.

“It was as if the town was under enemy attack. Ambulances and cars kept bringing dozens of screaming and moaning people with torn wounds on practically all parts of their bodies. I can’t tell you how many people we treated today. I lost count,” he said.

Forty people were critically injured in the market attacks, and the death toll may increase. The bombs were stuffed with bolts, screws and nails to maximize casualties, Russian authorities said.

Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, said intelligence reports indicated that the attacks could have been revenge for the recent arrests of two Chechen rebels, Ruslan Akhmadov and Badrudi Murtazayev, in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

“It looks very much like the style of Chechen gangs,” Yastrzhembsky said.

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, but this is often the case in Russian bomb attacks.

Russia’s Federal Security Service released a statement describing the bombings as carefully planned attacks by Chechen rebels.

“It is an effort by the rebel leaders to distract Russian security forces from the operation in Chechnya,” the statement said.

After the bombings, Putin called an emergency meeting of his top government and security officials in the Kremlin and sent FSB chief Nikolai P. Patrushev and other officials to the southern region.

Later, Putin canceled plans to attend an evening soccer match featuring the national team.

“One can only use rigorous methods in talking to these people. They don’t understand any other language,” Putin said in opening remarks at the Kremlin with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek.

The president also sent telegrams to the families of the dead.

“Blood has been shed again. Peaceful people have become victims of brutal terrorist acts again. The toughest measures will be taken in order to find and punish those who ordered and carried out these mean killings as soon as possible,” Putin said.

Russian television showed Putin’s envoy in the Caucasus, Viktor Kazantsev, berating local officials at the scene of the Mineralnye Vody blast for allowing cars to park near markets.

“How many times do we have to step on the same rake?” he said.

Piskaryov, the doctor, said he thought that people in his town--a spa resort whose economy relies on tourists from other parts of Russia--would no longer feel secure.

“Something has changed inside me. Now I know what it is like to be at war. It is a very dark, heavy feeling,” he said.

Asiat Kozyeva, a nurse at Mineralnye Vody hospital, had worked as an ambulance nurse in 1995 during an attack on a hospital in Budennovsk--close to the Chechen border--in which rebels took up to 2,000 people hostage.

“I moved here, but now the war has caught up with me,” she said.

Although they blamed Chechen terrorists, Russian authorities admitted that they were at a loss to prevent such attacks.

Putin’s powerful Security Council chief, Sergei Ivanov, said it is impossible to avert all terrorist assaults.

“It’s often been said that the predictable and clear policies of the [Russian authorities] will make the leadership of the Chechen armed groups turn to the tactic of terrorist attacks, and not just in the territory of Chechnya. That’s what is going on now,” Ivanov said.

Kostenko, of the organized crime directorate, agreed.

“It is a big question whether terrorist attacks are completely preventable at all,” he said. “Until the war in Chechnya is over, terrorist attacks can be expected any time, anywhere.”

After the attack, Russia criticized Washington over plans for U.S. officials to meet Chechen representative Ilyas Akhmadov this month.

A Kremlin official said Saturday’s terrorist acts “should sober up Washington.”

If the meeting goes ahead, Russia would question whether the U.S. was prepared to jointly fight international terrorism, the official told Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency.

Authorities said the first two attacks appeared to have been coordinated. The third car exploded as police were inspecting the vehicle, which they seized from a driver who had offered them a bribe.