SPECULATION OVER MOZDOK BOMBING

Of the eighteen servicemen and civilian employees of the federal air force killed by a female suicide bomber on June 5 in the southern Russian city of Mozdok, twelve were women. According to a report by Dmitry Balburov in the June 10 issue of the weekly Moskovskie novosti, all twelve of these women were mothers.

Most of the servicemen and local residents interviewed by Balburov after the suicide attack believed that the bomber’s target was the bus carrying her victims–that she did not intend or expect to enter the tightly guarded Prokhladny air base. It was easy to distinguish the bus from ordinary civilian buses; all of its passengers were Prokhladny employees.

Pavel Felgenhauer observed in Novaya gazeta on June 9 that the suicide-bomber allowed a bus carrying personnel from an anti-aircraft unit to pass unharmed. Apparently she wanted to target a unit directly involved in the bombing of Chechnya.