Russians Probe Hospital Security

Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov on Saturday accused local commanders of disobeying orders by failing to take measures that might have prevented a suicide truck bombing that killed at least 42 people at a military hospital near war-torn Chechnya.

“There is already clear evidence of a direct violation of official duties, orders and instructions,” Ivanov told reporters in Mozdok, North Ossetia, the scene of Friday’s blast and a key base for Russian troops fighting separatist guerrillas in Chechnya. While no one claimed responsibility, suspicion immediately fell on Chechen rebels.

“In defiance of all existing orders and instructions, the hospital was not fitted with any means of forcing vehicles to stop, even though there have been direct orders to have these means in place,” Ivanov said. “This already constitutes a violation of orders, not just slipshoddiness.”

Criminal investigators will look into “the personal guilt of commanders of specific units” in failing to prevent the attack, Ivanov said, adding that he had already relieved the head of the Mozdok garrison of his duties.

The chief military prosecutor’s office later announced that Lt. Col. Artur Arakelian, head of the destroyed military hospital, had been arrested for suspected criminal negligence and failure to carry out an order.

At the blast scene, hundreds of rescue workers used dogs, heavy machinery and their bare hands to search for victims and clear the rubble. Seventy-four of those injured in the blast remained hospitalized Saturday, 10 in critical condition, authorities said.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky, in remarks broadcast on NTV television, noted that the patients were military personnel who had fought rebels. He called the bombing “an act of revenge.”

Security was tightened in Moscow on Saturday. Police stepped up patrols in the subway, demanding identification from people who looked like they might not be local residents. Moscow police announced that rules requiring nonresidents of the city to register with authorities will be more strictly enforced and that checks of all trucks and suspicious cars entering the city have been stepped up.

“It is clear that no proper security measures had been taken at the Mozdok military hospital” but “the situation is the same practically everywhere,” said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst in Moscow.

“One can realize why Defense Minister Ivanov accused mid-level commanders of criminal negligence and oversights: the top-ranking officials in the Defense Ministry do not want to bear the responsibility for the bombing that took place in an allegedly peaceful republic and claimed the lives of more than 40 people,” the analyst said.

“Naturally, the top brass want to dump all the responsibility on their underlings,” he added. “This is understandable. But they should have known better. They should have constantly borne in mind that Mozdok is, in fact, one of the biggest Russian bases used for military operations in Chechnya.... It should have been protected as if it were in a war zone.”

Ivanov said that investigators had made rapid progress in tracing the history of the truck used in the bombing. “We already know quite a lot about how this vehicle has been resold many times over the past few weeks, and other things,” he said. “But I will not plunge into greater detail, for it is an investigative secret.”

The explosive device was made with ammonium nitrate, Ivanov said.

While it should have been difficult for terrorists to get onto the grounds of a military hospital, Felgenhauer said: “This is Russia. The Russian armed forces, just as the country on the whole, are notorious for a slipshod attitude to everything, including security issues.”

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, in a message of condolences to relatives of the victims released by his office Saturday, expressed determination to press forward with a political process he hopes will bring stability to Chechnya under a pro-Kremlin regime. As part of that effort, a Chechen presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 5.

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.