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St.
Petersburg attack: Suspicions focus on
Islamic and Central Asian origins
Semi-official agencies
speak of a young 23 year old suicide bomber.
Perhaps there was also a woman. Investigations
into Chechen and Islamic origins. Many Chechen
fighters have returned from Syria, where they
fought alongside Daesh. Expressions of
solidarity from Donald Trump, European Union,
UN.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The man suspected of
killing 11 people and injuring at least 45
in a suicide bomb on the St. Petersburg
subway is believed to be a young man of
about 20, from Central Asia. According to
the semi-official agencies Tass and Interfax
the man was identified from his remains.
Investigators say it was "a terrorist act",
but so far there has been no claim.
Meanwhile, the city has declared three days
of mourning. Last night, President Vladimir
Putin, who was in St. Petersburg to meet
with Belarusian President Aleksandr
Lukashenko, paid tribute to the victims
bringing flowers to the blast site.
Interfax said that the author of the attack
is a young man of 23 from Central Asia,
linked to radical Islam. Tass reported that
there could also be a woman involved in the
explosion. However, so far there has been no
official confirmation.
Suspected Islamic origins to the attack are
almost obvious. Russia’s involvement in the
fight against the Islamic State in Syria,
could have caused such a reaction. But
Mosocow has laso been fighting for decades
against Chechen separatism. Or, indeed, it
could be a combination of the two, since
there are many young Chechens and Central
Asia fighting in Syria alongside Daesh (at
least 7 thousand). Many of them have
returned to their homeland.
The St. Petersburg subway - used by at least
2 million passengers every day – had never
been targeted to date. In contrast, in 2010
a suicide attack in the Moscow subway killed
38 people. A year later, a bomb went off on
a high-speed train between Moscow and St.
Petersburg, killing 27 people and injuring
another 130. Both attacks were claimed by
Islamist groups. Nor must one forget the
attack on a Russian plane in flight from
Egypt, in October 2015, which led to the
death of 224 people. The attack was claimed
by the Islamic State.
Other attacks linked to Chechen
hostage-taking at Nord Ost theater in 2002
and the school in Beslan in 2004, in which
terrorists demanded the withdrawal of
Russian troops from Chechnya.
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