Yesterday's bombing of several administrative buildings in Znamenskoe, Chechnya showed callous indifference to civilian life.
At around 10:00 a.m. (local time) yesterday a powerful explosion ripped through the buildings of the local administration of Znamenskoe and the Federal Security Service and destroyed several houses in the immediate vicinity. According to press reports, the blast killed more than fifty people and wounded more than one hundred others. Many of the wounded are apparently in critical condition. Media reports cited officials in the pro-Moscow Chechen government as saying suicide bombers detonated an explosives-packed truck, after driving up to the buildings.
Press reports suggest that many of the casualties were civilians and include six children under the age of twelve, officials of the local administration of Znamenskoe and local police officers. According to a Chechen government source quoted in the press, ten officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) were also among the dead. As the FSB is in charge of Russia’s military operation in Chechnya, the FSB officers may have been combatants, making them legitimate targets for rebel attack.
“Even if there were legitimate military targets in the buildings, this attack was a crime that caused enormous human suffering,” said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
In a similar attack, in December 2002 Chechen rebels set off bombs at the headquarters of the pro-Moscow government of Chechnya in Grozny, killing more than seventy people. In October, armed rebels took about 800 people hostage at a theater in Moscow and threatened to kill them all. Rebels have also pursued a vicious assassination campaign against Chechen civil servants, policemen and religious clergymen cooperating with the Russian authorities, killing dozens each year.
