Chechen rebels took responsibility Wednesday for a bombing last week that derailed a passenger train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing 26 people and injuring 87.
The claim was carried on Kavkazcenter.com, a website that often carries information from Islamic rebels seeking independence for the Russian republic of Chechnya.
“We state that the given operation was prepared and carried out as part of the sabotage actions against strategically important facilities of Russia planned earlier this year and successfully carried out on the orders of Caucasus emir Doku Umarov,” the statement said.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the prosecutor general’s investigating committee, refused to comment on the claim but confirmed that committee chief Alexander Bastrykin was injured by a second bomb at the site where the Nevsky Express passenger train derailed late Friday.
Alexander Bastrykin said in an interview that the second explosion, set off as investigators were searching the wreckage, was characteristic of methods used by militants from the Caucasus region.
Analysts said that the Islamic rebels’ claim would raise tensions in the Caucasus and lead to an increase in arrests of ethnic people from the region.
