Fresh twin blasts in Dagestan

The local police chief twelve people were killed and more than 29 injured Wednesday in two successive blasts in Kizlyar town in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan. Kizlyar town twelve people have died in the blasts, near school at car parking according to local media.Local police chief Vitaly Vedernikov was also killed in suicide attack by a man in police uniform.The first blast took place at around 8.30 am (1000 IST) when a car parked on the street near a school and packed with explosives was blown up by its driver.As police officers and residents gathered at the scene there was a second blast half an hour later by a man who was wearing police uniform.There were no children in the school. Three cars parked near by were gutted.Authorities have launched investigations into the blasts.

Dagestan and other Caucasian regions neighbouring restive Chechnya, become frequent targets of militant violence directed against the law enforcement agencies.
On Monday, two female suicide bombers killed 39 in attacks on the Moscow metro which the authorities have linked to militants from the North Caucasus.Putin to launch hunt for the blast organizers, hints Af-Pak elements.

A single terrorist group may be behind the bombings in Moscow and Dagestan, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday."I do not rule out that this is one and the same group," Putin said at a government session.

The premier ordered that the relatives of those killed and injured in the Kizlyar blasts receive the same financial aid as relatives of victims of the Moscow bombings.Putin also ordered Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to strengthen police units in the North Caucasus. Nurgaliyev vowed to increase security in areas of strategic importance and crowded public places in Dagestan earlier on Wednesday.

The president of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, said the terrorist attacks in Moscow and Kizlyar are "links in the same chain."As many as 12 people were killed and 29 injured in twin blasts in the town of Kizlyar in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Wednesday morning.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Tuesday ordered security agencies to "scrap out from the bottom of the sewers" those responsible for the twin attacks that killed 39 people, even as Moscow hinted that militants trained at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border could be behind the blasts.Putin's strong comments came as police scrambled hard to nab the perpetrators of the twin suicide bombings suspected to have been carried out by two Chechen women on Moscow metro.

"We know that in the given situation they (terrorists) are hiding on the bottom, but it is a prestige issue for the law enforcement agencies to pick them out in to the sunlight from the bottom of the stinking sewer. And I am confident that this will be done," Putin said.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is well informed about the so-called "no-man's land" on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the terrorist underground has entrenched itself.

"We know that many terrorist attacks - not only in Afghanistan, but in other countries too - are plotted in that area... Sometimes, the trail leads to the Caucasus," Lavrov said.Addressing a Cabinet meeting convened to discuss security arrangements on the public transport system, Putin told the security agencies that it was a "prestige issue" for them to locate the organizers of Monday's attacks.

Putin, in his televised remarks, noted that one of the blown carriages of metro train had CCTV camera, which could not prevent the terror act, but was helpful in locating the organizers.President Dmitry Medvedev pressed for tougher anti-terror laws to combat the menace."We need to focus our attention on certain aspects of improving legislation aimed at preventing terrorist acts," Medvedev said in televised remarks, a day after two suspected Chechen woman suicide bombers targeted the subway system.

He called for measures to step up the efficiency of law enforcement agencies, increase the safety of public places and transport systems as well as to improve the implementation of the country's anti-terrorism statutes.

"We have been destroying terrorists and will continue to destroy them. In recent years have learnt how to do this," Medvedev said.Security sources were quoted as saying that the two women suicide bombers boarded a metro train together at the Yugo-Zapadnaya station. Interfax reported that they were accompanied to the station by another two women and a man who were photographed by CCTV.As the country observed the 'Day of Mourning' in memory of the victims of the blasts, commuters broke their journey at Lubyanka and Park Kultury metro stations to place flowers at the makeshift boards, marking the area on platforms where most of the people died Monday in globally-condemned attacks.