A suicide car bomber killed at least 16 people and injured more than 100 yesterday at a market in the Russian Caucasus, the deadliest militant strike for months in the troubled region.
Officials said the blast in the city of Vladikavkaz was caused by a suicide bomber who drove up to a local market in an explosives-packed car and whose headless body was later discovered.
The bomb stuffed with metal bolts and metal bars created carnage around the busy market just before lunch, reducing several cars to wreckage and shattering windows of nearby buildings.
Half-naked charred corpses with disfigured faces were laid out on stretchers amid the remnants of tomatoes and melons from fruit stalls, as people wept looking for their loved ones.
“A headless man was sitting in a car and I realized that it was probably terrorists,” Zhanna Margiyeva, an office worker who went to the market during lunchtime, said through tears.
“I am scared. My kid uses public transportation every day. This can happen to any of us any time.”
Officials warned the death toll was likely to go up as many of the injured were in a critical condition.
The attack in the capital of the mainly Christian region of North Ossetia was the latest strike to hit the Russian Caucasus, plagued by an Islamist insurgency that has claimed scores of lives in the past months.
It was the deadliest attack in the Russian Caucasus since a truck bombing outside the police headquarters in Ingushetia in August 2009 killed 24.
President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to do everything to track down those behind the bombing.
“We will do everything to capture these monsters... these bastards, who carried out a terrorist act on ordinary people,” Mr Medvedev said. “We will do everything to find and punish them.”
The death toll rose to 16 after an 18-month-old toddler died of his injuries, medical sources said. The boy’s three-year-old brother was also in intensive care.
The regional health minister Vladimir Selivanov said 123 people had been injured, with 10 hospitalised in a very serious condition, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
“A terrorist suicide bomber in a car parked at the entrance to the central market of Vladikavkaz ignited an explosive charge at 11.20 a.m. (0720 GMT),” the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors said in a statement.
“The people who do this, these are people without a soul, without a heart,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
“They have nothing holy. It is our common duty to fight these criminals,” he said at a meeting with Russian Muslim leaders to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Gatsoyeva said the blast had been caused by explosives weighing 30-40 kilogrammes of TNT equivalent.