Teenage Black Widow behind Moscow bombing

Russia has identified a 17-year-old widow of an Islamist militant as one of the Moscow suicide bombers, officials said yesterday, as the country stayed on alert after attacks in the capital and the Caucasus.

The National Anti-Terror Committee (NAK) said one of the two female suicide bombers who blew themselves up on the Moscow metro Monday has been identified as Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova from Dagestan in the North Caucasus.

The Kommersant newspaper had earlier published a photograph of the baby-faced teenager in an Islamic headscarf with her late husband, Islamist militant Umalat Magomedov.

The news came as Russia remained tense after the metro suicide bombing killed 40, followed on Wednesday by a double suicide strike that killed 12 in a town in Dagestan close to Chechnya.

"One of the female suicide bombers, who blew herself up at the Park Kultury metro station, was Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova," a NAK official told RIA Novosti and Interfax.

"She was born in 1992 and lived in the Khasavyurtsky region of Dagestan. The material has been sent to the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors," the official added.

Kommersant newspaper said Ms Abdurakhmanova was aged 17. The investigative committee of prosecutors also confirmed her identity in a website statement.

The Islamist group "Emirate of the Caucasus", which is waging an insurgency to impose an Islamic state based on sharia law in the North Caucasus, has claimed the Moscow attacks in a message from its shadowy leader.

Its leader Doku Umarov said in a video posted on the kavkazcenter.com website that he personally ordered the strikes.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who visited Dagestan the day before, said yesterday that "the investigation is moving fairly quickly" and vowed to destroy the "bandit nests" of militants. He also urged tougher action against those deemed to have helped militants. "Anyone who assists (militants) - no matter what he does - cooks a soup or washes clothes - commits a full-blown crime."

The death toll from the Moscow suicide bombings rose to 40 after a 51-year-old man wounded in the attacks died in hospital, officials said.

ITAR-TASS news agency said 84 people remained hospitalised. Russian TV said some of the injured were in critical condition.