From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 6/12/2005 4:11 AM
Chechnya train derailed by blast
A Russian passenger train heading from restive Chechnya was derailed by an explosion on Sunday, the FSB national security service said. An FSB spokesman said 15 people, including an 11-year-old girl, had been injured when two carriages of the train heading from the Chechen capital Jokhar derailed 150 km (90 miles) south of Moscow.
Officials earlier said that two people, including the girl, had been rushed to hospital. Others, who have sustained lighter injuries, have been offered medical assistance at the scene and delivered to Moscow by a commuter train.
"The train driver told investigators that an explosion took place on the railway bed in front of the engine," the spokesman said.
He said that investigators at the scene found electric wires leading to a one-meter-wide (three-foot-wide) crater left by the blast. He also said they found what they believe was a position, from which the attacker operated.
The spokesman did not say who might be responsible for the attack on the train, which carried more than 300 passengers.
On Sunday, Russia marks its main national holiday when security forces are routinely put on high alert for possible attacks by Chechen Mujahiddeen.
A regular passenger train link with Jokhar (Grozny) has been widely advertised by Russian officials as a sign of normalisation in the Chechnya, devastated by years of conflict. But President Vladimir Putin's adviser on the region suggested that Russian ultra-nationalists could equally have been responsible for the attack on the train.
"Unfortunately, there are a number of Nazi organizations who do not hide their hatred of people originating from the Caucasus region," Aslanbek Aslakhanov, an ethnic Chechen, told Interfax.
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