LITTLE PROGRESS IN MOZDOK BOMBING CASE

As of August 12, reports from the Russian authorities regarding their efforts to solve the August 1 terrorist bombing in Mozdok continued to be full of assurances–but these assurances remained noticeably vague. Aleksandr Savenkov, Russia’s top military prosecutor, told journalists on August 12 that the authorities had succeeded in identifying all the people who had taken part in obtaining the truck used in the bombing of the military hospital. He predicted that “in the coming months we will be able to announce who is guilty,” but did not explain why it would take months rather than weeks or days.

In the August 11 issue of Novaya gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya noted that the authorities had indeed arrested the sellers of the fatal truck. But it turned out that the sellers had conducted that transaction not underground, but in completely legal fashion. The buyer, who apparently was a Chechen, remains at large.