1999 Russian apartment bombings: Difference between revisions

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Police and rescue vehicles converged from different parts of the city, and 30,000 residents were evacuated from the area. 1,200 local police officers armed with automatic weapons set up [[roadblock]]s on highways around the city and started patrolling railroad stations and airports to hunt the terrorists down. In the morning, "Ryazan resembled a city under siege".<ref name="Satter"/> [[Composite sketch]]es of two men and a woman terrorist suspects were shown on TV. In the morning of [[September 23]] Russian television networks reported the attempt to blow up a building in Ryazan using RDX.<ref name="ort">{{ru icon}} [http://terror1999.narod.ru/ryazan/press/ort230999.html [[Channel One (Russia)|ORT]] newscast on 23.09.99, at 09:00]</ref> Minister of [[Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs|Internal Affairs]] [[Vladimir Rushailo]] announced that police prevented a terrorist act. Later in the evening [[Prime Minister of Russia]] [[Vladimir Putin]] praised the vigilance of the Ryazanians and called for the air bombing of the Chechen capital [[Grozny]].<ref>{{harvnb|Goldfarb|Litvinenko|2007|p=196}}</ref> In the evening of September 23, the perpetrators were caught. A telephone service employee tapped into long distance phone conversations and managed to detect a talk in which an out-of-town person suggested to others that they "split up" and "make your own way out". That person's number was traced to a [[Telephone exchange|telephone exchange unit]] serving FSB offices.<ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19795 Russia's terrorist bombings], [[WorldNetDaily]], January 27, 2000</ref> When arrested, the detainees produced FSB identification cards. They were soon released on orders from Moscow.<ref name="shadow">[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-satter043002.asp The Shadow of Ryazan: Is Putin’s government legitimate?], [[National Review Online]], April 30, 2002</ref><ref name="bbc_ryazan">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/456848.stm Ryazan 'bomb' was security service exercise]</ref> According to the head of FSB [[Nikolai Patrushev]], the exercise was carried out to test responses after the earlier blasts. FSB issued a public apology about the incident.<ref name="nyt_ber">[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00EFD8163DF932A35751C0A9649C8B63 Russian Says Kremlin Faked 'Terror Attacks']</ref>
Police and rescue vehicles converged from different parts of the city, and 30,000 residents were evacuated from the area. 1,200 local police officers armed with automatic weapons set up [[roadblock]]s on highways around the city and started patrolling railroad stations and airports to hunt the terrorists down. In the morning, "Ryazan resembled a city under siege".<ref name="Satter"/> [[Composite sketch]]es of two men and a woman terrorist suspects were shown on TV. In the morning of [[September 23]] Russian television networks reported the attempt to blow up a building in Ryazan using RDX.<ref name="ort">{{ru icon}} [http://terror1999.narod.ru/ryazan/press/ort230999.html [[Channel One (Russia)|ORT]] newscast on 23.09.99, at 09:00]</ref> Minister of [[Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs|Internal Affairs]] [[Vladimir Rushailo]] announced that police prevented a terrorist act. Later in the evening [[Prime Minister of Russia]] [[Vladimir Putin]] praised the vigilance of the Ryazanians and called for the air bombing of the Chechen capital [[Grozny]].<ref>{{harvnb|Goldfarb|Litvinenko|2007|p=196}}</ref> In the evening of September 23, the perpetrators were caught. A telephone service employee tapped into long distance phone conversations and managed to detect a talk in which an out-of-town person suggested to others that they "split up" and "make your own way out". That person's number was traced to a [[Telephone exchange|telephone exchange unit]] serving FSB offices.<ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19795 Russia's terrorist bombings], [[WorldNetDaily]], January 27, 2000</ref> When arrested, the detainees produced FSB identification cards. They were soon released on orders from Moscow.<ref name="shadow">[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-satter043002.asp The Shadow of Ryazan: Is Putin’s government legitimate?], [[National Review Online]], April 30, 2002</ref><ref name="bbc_ryazan">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/456848.stm Ryazan 'bomb' was security service exercise]</ref> According to the head of FSB [[Nikolai Patrushev]], the exercise was carried out to test responses after the earlier blasts. FSB issued a public apology about the incident.<ref name="nyt_ber">[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00EFD8163DF932A35751C0A9649C8B63 Russian Says Kremlin Faked 'Terror Attacks']</ref>


⚫
==Claims of responsibility for the blasts==
==Other related events==
===The type of explosives controversy===
It was initially reported by the FSB that the explosives used by the terrorists was [[RDX]] (or "hexogen"). However, it was officially declared later that the explosive was not RDX, but a mixture of aluminum powder, [[niter]] (saltpeter), [[sugar]], and [[Trinitrotoluene|TNT]] prepared by the perpetrators in a [[concrete mixer]] at a fertilizer factory in [[Urus-Martan]], Chechnya.<ref name="Kommersant2004-01-13">{{ru icon}} [http://kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?docsid=440000 Two life sentences for 246 murders], ''[[Kommersant]]'', January 13, 2004. (Russian:"в бетономешалке изготовила смесь из сахара, селитры и алюминиевой пудры"</ref><ref name="Kommersant2002-12-10">[http://kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?docsid=355437 Only one explosions suspect still free], ''[[Kommersant]]'', December 10, 2002.</ref> RDX is produced in only onefactory in Russia, in the city of [[Perm]],<ref name="Satter"/>. According to the book by Satter, the FSB changed the story about the type of explosive, since it was difficult to explain how huge amounts of RDX disappeared from the closely guarded Perm facility.

===A military storage with RDX disguised as "sugar"===
In March 2000, Russian newspaper ''[[Novaya Gazeta]] ''reported about a Private Alexei Pinyaev of the 137th Regiment who guarded a military facility near the city of Ryazan. He was surprised to see that "a storehouse with weapons and ammunition" contained sacks with the word "sugar" on them. The two paratroopers cut a hole in one of the bags and made a tea with the sugar taken from the bag. But the taste of tea was terrible. They became suspicious since people were talking about the explosions. The substance turned out to be the hexogen. After the newspaper report, FSB officers "descended on Pinyaev's unit", accused them of "divulging a state secret", and told them "You guys can't even imagine what serious business you've got yourselves tangled up in." The regiment later sued ''Novaya Gazeta'' for insulting the honor of the Russian Army, since there was no Private Alexei Pinyaev in the regiment, according to their statement.<ref> "The Age of Assassins", pages 127-129</ref>

===Incident in Russian Parliament===
On [[September 13]], just hours after the second explosion in Moscow, Russian Duma speaker [[Gennadiy Seleznyov]] of the Communist Party made a surprising announcement: "''I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-on-Don, an apartment building in the city of [[Volgodonsk]] was blown up last night''".<ref name=autogenerated5> "Death of a Dissident", page 265 </ref><ref name="Jamestown">[http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=13&issue_id=576&article_id=4218 HAUNTING YUSHENKOV LECTURE BROADCAST], [[The Jamestown Foundation]], June 12, 2003</ref><ref name="CDI">[http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2006-25-32.cfm CDI]</ref><ref>{{ru icon}} [http://www.newsru.com/russia/21mar2002/seleznyov.html Геннадия Селезнева предупредили о взрыве в Волгодонске за три дня до теракта ("Gennadiy Seleznyov was warned of the Volgodonsk explosion three days in advance")], [[NewsRu.com]], 21 March 2002</ref> However the bombing in Volgodonsk took place only three days later, on [[September 16]]. When the Volgodonsk bombing happened, [[Vladimir Zhirinovsky]] demanded an explanation in Duma, but Seleznev turned his microphone off.<ref name=autogenerated5 /><ref> [[Vladimir Zhirinovsky]] said in Russian Duma: "Remember Gennadiy Nikolaevich how you told us that a house has been blown up in Volgodonsk, three days prior to the blast? How should we interpret this? The State Duma knows that the house was destroyed on Monday, and it has indeed been blown up on Thursday [same week]... How come... the state authorities of Rostov region were not warned in advance [about the future bombing], although it was reported to us? Everyone is sleeping, the house was destroyed three days later, and now we must take urgent measures..." [Seleznev turned his microphone off].[http://fictionbook.ru/author/felshtinskiyi_yuriyi_georgievich/fsb_vzriyvaet_rossiyu/felshtinskiyi_fsb_vzriyvaet_rossiyu.html]</ref>

Two years later, in March 2002, Seleznyov claimed in an interview that he had been referring to an unrelated [[hand grenade]]-based explosion, which did not kill anyone and did not destroy any buildings, and which indeed happened in Volgodonsk.<ref name="Seleznev"> "Darkness at Dawn", page 269.</ref><ref name="terror99-2">{{ru icon}} [http://terror99.ru/documents/doc02.htm Reply of the Public Prosecutor Office of the Russian Federation to a deputy inquiry]</ref> It remains unclear why Seleznyov reported such an insignificant incident to the Russian Parliament and why he did not explain the misunderstanding to Zhirinovsky and other Duma members.<ref name="Seleznev"/>

FSB [[Defection|defector]] [[Alexander Litvinenko]] described this as a "the usual [[KGB|Kontora]] mess up": ''"Moscow-2 was on the 13th and Volgodonsk on 16th, but they got it to the speaker the other way around,"'' he said. Investigator [[Mikhail Trepashkin]] confirmed that the man who gave Seleznev the note was indeed an FSB officer.<ref> "Death of a Dissident", page 266 </ref>

===Testimony by Alexey Galkin===
In December 1999, journalist [[Robert Young Pelton]] interviewed senior lieutenant [[Aleksey Galkin]], a [[GRU]] officer who was a prisoner of the Chechen rebels.<ref name="Galkin1">{{ru icon}} [http://2002.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2002/89n/n89n-s24.shtml The first voluntary interview of Alexey Galkin, comments by journalist Roman Shleinov and conclusion of psychologist Michail Istomin], ''[[Novaya Gazeta]]'', December 2, 2002</ref> Galkin confessed that the bombing in Buynaksk was organized by a GRU team under the general command of the head of the 14th section of the Central Intelligence Office, Lt. Gen. Kostechko, and GRU director [[Valentin Korabelnikov]].<ref name="Galkin2">{{ru icon}} [http://2002.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2002/89n/n89n-s23.shtml Our group prepared diversions in Chechnya and Dagestan. Testimony of senior lieutenant Alexey Galkin], ''[[Novaya Gazeta]]'' N 89, [[December 2]], [[2002]]</ref><ref name="Pribylovsky">{{ru icon}} [http://www.lib.ru/HISTORY/FELSHTINSKY/naslednik.txt The Operation "Successor"] by [[Vladimir Pribylovsky]] and [[Yuriy Felshtinsky]].</ref> Pelton describes the interview with Galkin in his book ''Three Worlds Gone Mad''.<ref>[[Robert Young Pelton]] ''Three Worlds Gone Mad: Dangerous Journeys through the War Zones of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific'', The Lyons Press; (2003), ISBN 1-592-28100-1</ref>

Galkin escaped from captivity at the beginning of 2000. After his escape he stated that Chechen rebels had tortured him to force statements he made to Pelton. His claims have been supported by medical expertise.<ref name="Assassins"/><ref name="Galkin1" /> Galkin did not tell anything at all about the alleged GRU involvement in the bombings during his interview to ''[[Novaya Gazeta]]'',<ref name="Galkin1" /><ref name="Galkin2" /> thus he "did not deny" the GRU operation according to Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky.<ref name="Assassins"/>

===Sealing of all materials by Russian Duma===
The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident.<ref name="terror99-49">[http://www.eng.terror99.ru/publications/049.htm Duma Rejects Move to Probe Ryazan Apartment Bomb], Terror-99, 21 March 2000</ref><ref name="terror99-42">[http://www.eng.terror99.ru/publications/042.htm Duma Vote Kills Query On Ryazan], ''[[The Moscow Times]]'', 4 April 2000</ref> The Duma, on a pro-Kremlin party line vote, voted to seal all materials related to the Ryazan incident for the next 75 years and forbade an investigation into what happened.

===Arrest of independent investigator Trepashkin===
The commission of Sergei Kovalev asked lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin to investigate the case. Trepashkin found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. However Trepashkin was unable to bring the evidence to the court because he was arrested in October 2003, allegedly for "disclosing state secrets", just a few days shortly before he was to make his findings public.<ref>[http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/8014-18.cfm For Trepashkin, Bomb Trail Leads to Jail], ''[[The Moscow Times]]'', January 14, 2004</ref> He was sentenced by a military [[secret trial|closed court]] to four years imprisonment.<ref>[http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print_right.php?func=detail&par=10113 Russian Ex-Agent's Sentencing Called Political Investigator was about to release a report on 1999 bombings when he was arrested], ''[[The Los Angeles Times]]'', 20/05/2004</ref> [[Amnesty International]] issued a statement that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities".<ref>[http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engEUR460132006 Russian Federation: Amnesty International calls for Mikhail Trepashkin to be released pending a full review of his case]</ref> Romanovich subsequently died in a [[hit and run]] accident in [[Cyprus]]. According to Trepashkin, his supervisors and people from the FSB promised not to arrest him if he left the Kovalev commission and started working together with the FSB "against Alexander Litvinenko".<ref>{{ru icon}} [http://www.svobodanews.ru/Transcript/2007/12/01/20071201143422327.html Interview with Mikhail Trepashkin], [[RFE/RL]], December 1, 2007. "давай вместе работать против Литвиненко и уйди из комиссии по взрывам домов и тогда тебя никто не тронет. Я говорил со своими шефами, совершенно точно, тебя не тронут. Кончай с Ковалевым Сергеем Адамовичем контактировать в Госдуме и так далее."</ref> Commission chairman Kovalev summarized their findings as follows:<ref name="RFL">{{ru icon}} [http://www.svobodanews.ru/Transcript/2008/06/02/20080602235914540.html The bombing case. Victims ask the president to resume the investigation (Russian)], [[RFE/RL]], June 2, 2008</ref> "What can I tell? We can prove only one thing: there was ''no'' any training exercise in the city of Ryazan. Authorities do not want to answer any questions..."

===Publications about advanced planning of the bombings===
On [[June 6]] [[1999]], three months before the bombings, Swedish journalist Jan Blomgren wrote in newspaper ''[[Svenska Dagbladet]]'' that one of options considered by the Kremlin leaders was "a series of terror bombings in Moscow that could be blamed on the Chechens."<ref name="Advance"> "Darkness at Dawn", page 267 </ref>

On [[July 22]], Moscow newspaper ''Moskovskaya Pravda'' published leaked documents about an operation "Storm in Moscow", which by organizing terrorist acts to cause chaos would bring about a state of emergency, thus saving the Yeltsin regime.<ref> "Darkness at Dawn", page 63 </ref>

Russian Duma member Konstantin Borovoi said that he had been "warned by an agent of Russian military intelligence of a wave of terrorist bombings" prior to the blasts.<ref name="Advance"/>

⚫
===Claims and denials of responsibility for the blasts===
After first bombings, Moscow mayor [[Luzhkov]] asserted no warning had been given for the attacks<ref name="bbc_aug31"/> A previously unknown group protesting against growing consumerism in Russia claimed responsibility for the blast. A note was found at the site of the explosion from the group, calling itself the Revolutionary Writers, according to FSB.<ref name="bbc_aug31_media">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/435468.stm Media mystified by mall blast]</ref>
After first bombings, Moscow mayor [[Luzhkov]] asserted no warning had been given for the attacks<ref name="bbc_aug31"/> A previously unknown group protesting against growing consumerism in Russia claimed responsibility for the blast. A note was found at the site of the explosion from the group, calling itself the Revolutionary Writers, according to FSB.<ref name="bbc_aug31_media">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/435468.stm Media mystified by mall blast]</ref>


Revision as of 22:01, 24 April 2009

Russian apartment bombings
LocationRussia
(Buynaksk-Moscow-Volgodonsk)
DateSeptember 4-16, 1999
TargetLow-income apartment buildings
Attack type
Time bombings
DeathsNearly 300
InjuredMore than 1,000

The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing nearly 300 people and spreading a wave of fear across the country. Together with the Invasion of Dagestan launched by militants from Chechnya in August 1999, the bombings caused the Russian Federation to intensify the Second Chechen war.

The blasts hit Buynaksk on September 4, Moscow on September 9 and 13, and Volgodonsk on September 16. Several other bombs were defused in Moscow at the time.[1] A similar bomb was found and defused in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 23. On the next day FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev announced that the Ryazan incident had been a training exercise and the bomb was declared a fake.[2] Contrary to this, the police explosives expert who defused the Ryazan bomb, insisted that it was real.[3][4]

A criminal investigation of the bombings was completed in 2002. According to the investigation and the court ruling that followed, the bombings were organized by Achemez Gochiyaev, who remained at large as of 2009, and ordered by Arab Mujahids Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif, who have been killed. Six other suspects have been convicted by Russian courts.

Previous threats

A Finnish journalist who in mid-August 1999, before the bombings, travelled to the village of Karamakhi in Dagestan, interviewed some villagers and their military Commander General Dzherollak. The journalist wrote: "The Wahhabis' trucks go all over Russia. Even one wrong move in Moscow or Makhachkala, they warn, will lead to bombs and bloodshed everywhere." According to the journalist the Wahhabis had told him, "if they start bombing us, we know where our bombs will explode."[5] In the last days of August, Russian military launched an aerial bombing of the villages.[5]

The bombings

Overview

Five apartment bombings took place and at least three attempted bombings were prevented.[6] All bombing had the same "signature", judging from the nature and the volume of the destruction. In each case the explosive RDX was used, and the timers were set to go off at night and inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties.[7] The explosives were placed to destroy the weakest, most critical elements of the buildings and force the buildings to "collapse like a house of cards"[6]. The terrorists were able to obtain or manufacture several tons of powerful explosives and deliver them to numerous destinations across Russia [6]. 27 terrorist suspects had been arrested in Moscow over the period of 9-14 September but later released[8]

Moscow mall

On August 31, 1999, at 20:00 local time a powerful explosion took place in a busy Moscow shopping center.[9] One person was killed and 40 others injured.[6] According to FSB, the explosion had been caused by a bomb of about 300g of explosives.[9]

Buynaksk, Dagestan

On September 4, 1999, at 22:00 (18:00 GMT), a car bomb detonated outside a five story apartment building in the city of Buynaksk in Dagestan, near the border of Chechnya. The building was housing Russian border guard soldiers and their families.[10] 64 people were killed and 133 were injured in the explosion.[7][11] Another car bomb was found and defused in the same town.[10] [12] The defused bomb was in a car containing 2,706 kilograms of explosives. It was discovered by local residents in a parking lot surrounded by an army hospital and residential buildings.(Felshtinsky & Pribylovsky 2008, pp. 105–111)

Moscow, Pechatniki

Bombing at Guryanova Street. One section of the building completely collapsed.

On September 9, 1999, shortly after midnight local time, at 20:00 GMT,[13] 300 to 400 kg of explosives detonated on the ground floor of an apartment building in south-east Moscow (19 Guryanova Street). The nine-story building was destroyed, killing 94 people inside and injuring 249 others. 15 nearby buildings were also damaged.[13] A total of 108 apartments were destroyed during the bombing. An FSB spokesman identified the explosive as RDX.[6] Residents said a few minutes before the blast four men were seen speeding away from the building in a car.[14]

The President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin ordered the search of 30,000 residential buildings in Moscow for explosives.[15]. He took personal control of the investigation of the blast.[8]. Vladimir Putin declared September 13 a day of mourning for the victims of the attacks.[13]

Moscow, Kashirskoye highway

On September 13, 1999, at 5:00 a.m., a large bomb exploded in a basement of an apartment block on Kashirskoye Highway in southern Moscow, about 6 km from the place of the last attack. 118 people died and 200 were injured. This was the deadliest blast in the chain of bombings. The eight-story building was flattened, littering the street with debris and throwing some concrete pieces hundreds of yards away.[7][16]

Moscow, attempted bombings

According to FSB public relations director Alexander Zdanovich and Oksana Yablokova of The Moscow Times, official investigators defused explosives on Borisovskiye Prudy street in Moscow September 14, 1999.[1][17] Yuri Felshtinsky and Alexander Litvinenko added a site in the Liublino district and another in Kapotnya to the list of caches.[18] Satter wrote that three attempted bombings were prevented.[19]

According to the messages received by Yuri Felshtinsky and by Prima News agency from someone claiming to be Achemez Gochiyaev, on September 13, 1999 a bomb was defused in a building in the Kapotnya area. A warehouse containing several tons of explosives and six timing devices was found at Borisovskiye Prudy. The author of the messages wrote that he called the police and warned about the bombing locations, which helped to prevent a large number of further casualties.[20] Gochiyaev or his impersonators claimed that he was framed by his old acquaintance, an FSB officer who asked him to rent basements "as storage facilities" at four locations where bombs were later found.[21][22]

Volgodonsk

A truck bomb exploded on September 16, 1999, outside a nine-story apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 people and injuring 69.[6] The bombing took place at 5:57 am.[23] Surrounding buildings were also damaged. The blast also happened nine miles from a nuclear power plant.[23] Prime Minister Putin signed a decree calling on law enforcement and other agencies to develop plans within three days to protect industry, transportation, communications, food processing centers and nuclear complexes.[23]

Ryazan incident

On the evening of September 22, 1999, a resident of an apartment building in the city of Ryazan noticed two suspicious men who carried sacks into the basement from a car with a Moscow license plate.[24] [25],[26],[27]. He alerted the police, but by the time they arrived the car and the men were gone. The policemen found three 50 kg sacks of white powder in the basement. A detonator and a timing device were attached and armed. The timer was set to 5:30 AM.[7] Yuri Tkachenko, the head of the local bomb squad, disconnected the detonator and the timer and tested the three sacks of white substance with a "MO-2" gas analyzer. The device detected traces of RDX, the military explosive used in all previous bombings.[3][4][6]

Police and rescue vehicles converged from different parts of the city, and 30,000 residents were evacuated from the area. 1,200 local police officers armed with automatic weapons set up roadblocks on highways around the city and started patrolling railroad stations and airports to hunt the terrorists down. In the morning, "Ryazan resembled a city under siege".[6] Composite sketches of two men and a woman terrorist suspects were shown on TV. In the morning of September 23 Russian television networks reported the attempt to blow up a building in Ryazan using RDX.[28] Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo announced that police prevented a terrorist act. Later in the evening Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the Ryazanians and called for the air bombing of the Chechen capital Grozny.[29] In the evening of September 23, the perpetrators were caught. A telephone service employee tapped into long distance phone conversations and managed to detect a talk in which an out-of-town person suggested to others that they "split up" and "make your own way out". That person's number was traced to a telephone exchange unit serving FSB offices.[30] When arrested, the detainees produced FSB identification cards. They were soon released on orders from Moscow.[31][32] According to the head of FSB Nikolai Patrushev, the exercise was carried out to test responses after the earlier blasts. FSB issued a public apology about the incident.[33]

Claims of responsibility for the blasts

After first bombings, Moscow mayor Luzhkov asserted no warning had been given for the attacks[9] A previously unknown group protesting against growing consumerism in Russia claimed responsibility for the blast. A note was found at the site of the explosion from the group, calling itself the Revolutionary Writers, according to FSB.[34]

On September 2, Al-Khattab announced: "The mujahideen of Dagestan are going to carry out reprisals in various places across Russia."[35], but Khattab would later on September 14 deny responsibility in the blasts, adding that he is fighting the Russian army, not women and children.[36]

On September 9, an anonymous person speaking with a Caucasian accent called the Interfax news agency, saying that the blasts in Moscow and Buynaksk were "our response to the bombings of civilians in the villages in Chechnya and Dagestan."[8][37] In an interview to the Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny on September 9, Shamil Basayev denied responsibility saying: "The latest blast in Moscow is not our work, but the work of the Dagestanis. Russia has been openly terrorizing Dagestan, it encircled three villages in the centre of Dagestan, did not allow women and children to leave."[38] A few days later Basayev denied that islamist fighters were responsible for the blasts, and instead were connected to "Russian domestic politics."[39] In a later interview Basayev said he had no idea who was behind the bombings. "Dagestani’s could have done it, or the Russian special services."[40]

During September 9 - 13, AP reporter Greg Myre conducted an interview with Ibn Al-Khattab, in which Al-Khattab as said, "From now on, we will not only fight against Russian fighter jets and tanks. From now on, they will get our bombs everywhere. Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities. I swear we will do it." The interview was published on September 15.[41][42] In a subsequent interview with Interfax, al-Khattab denied involvement in the bombings, saying "We would not like to be akin to those who kill sleeping civilians with bombs and shells."[41][43]

On September 15, an unidentified man, again speaking with a Caucasian accent, called the ITAR-TASS news agency, claiming to represent a group called the Liberation Army of Dagestan. He said, that the explosions in Buynaksk and Moscow were carried out by his organization.[8] According to him the attacks were a retaliation to the deaths of muslim women and children during Russian air raids in Dagestan. "We will answer death with death," the caller said..[44] Russian officials from both the Interior Ministry and FSB at the time expressed skepticism over the claims.[39] Sergei Bogdanov of the FSB press service in Moscow said that the words of a previously unknown individual representing a semi-mythical organization should not be considered as reliable. Mr. Bogdanov insisted that the organization had nothing to do with the bombing.[45] On September 15, 1999 a Dagestani official also denied the existence of a "Dagestan Liberation Army".[46]

Criminal investigation and court ruling

The official investigation was concluded in 2002. According to the Russian State Prosecutor office,[47][48] all apartment bombings were executed under command of ethnic Karachay Achemez Gochiyayev. The operations were planned by Ibn al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif, Arab militants fighting in Chechnya on the side of Chechen insurgents. Both Russia and USA accuse of Al-Khattab of having direct links with Al-Qaida,[49], though Khattab himself has always dennied this.[50][51] Al-Khattab and al-Saif were later killed during the Second Chechen War. The planning was carried out in Khattab's guerilla camps in Chechnya, "Caucasus" in Shatoy and "Taliban" in Avtury, according to the prosecution.[48] Gochiyaev's group was trained at Chechen rebel bases in the towns of Serzhen-Yurt and Urus-Martan. The group's "technical instructors" were two Arab field commanders, Abu Umar and Abu Djafar, Al-Khattab was the bombings' brainchild.[52] The explosives were prepared at a fertilizer factory in Urus-Martan Chechnya, by "mixing aluminium powder, nitre and sugar in a concrete mixer",[53] or by also putting their RDX and TNT.[47] From there they were sent to a food storage facility in Kislovodsk, which was managed by an uncle of one of the terrorists, Yusuf Krymshakhalov. Another conspirator, Ruslan Magayayev, leased a KamAZ truck in which the sacks were stored for two months. After everything was planned, the participants were organized into several groups which then transported the explosives to different cities.

Moscow

Al-Khattab paid Gochiyayev $500,000 to carry out the attacks at Guryanova Street, Kashirskoye Skosse and Borsovskiye Prudy, and then helped to hide Gochiyayev and his accomplices in Chechnya.[54][55] In early September, 1999, Magayayev, Krymshamkhalov, Batchayev and Dekkushev reloaded the cargo into a Mercedes-Benz 2236[56] trailer and delivered it to Moscow. En route, they were protected from possible complications by an accomplice Khakim Abayev,[56] who accompanied the trailer in another car. In Moscow they were met by Achimez Gochiayev, who registered in Hotel Altai under the fake name "Laipanov", and Denis Saitakov. The explosive was left in a warehouse in Ulitsa Krasnodonskaya, which was leased by pseudo-Laipanov (Gochiayev.) The next day explosives were delivered in "ZIL-5301" vans to three addresses – Ulitsa Guryanova, Kashirskoye Shosse and Ulitsa Borisovskiye Prudy, where pseudo-Laipanov leased cellars.[56] Gochiayev supervised the placement of the explosives in the rented cellars. Next followed the explosions at the former two addresses. The explosion at 16 Borisovskiye Prudy was prevented.[54][57] Batchayev and Krymshakhalov admitted transporting a truckload of explosives to Moscow but said "they have never been in touch with Chechen warlords and did not know Gochiyaev".[7] They said that someone "who posed as a jihad leader had duped them into the operation" by hiring them to transport his explosives, and they later realized this man was working for the FSB.[7] They claimed that bombings were directed by German Ugryumov who supervised the FSB Alpha and Vympel special forces units at that time.[58]

Buinaksk

The 4 September Buinaksk bombings were ordered by Al-Khattab, who promised the bombers $300,000 to drive their truck bombs into the center of the compound, which would have destroyed four apartment buildings simultaneously. However, the bombers parked on an adjacent street instead and blew up only one building. At the trial they complained, that Khattab had not given them all the money he owed them.[54] One of the bombers confessed working for Al-Khattab, but claimed he did not know the explosives were intended to blow up the military apartment buildings.[54]

Volgodonsk

According to Dekkushev's confession he, together with Krymshamkhalov and Batchayev, prepared the explosives, transported them to Volgodonsk, and randomly picked the apartment building on Octyabrskoye Shosse to blow up. Abu Omar had promised to pay him the for the job, but Dekkushev never got a single kopeck. According to Dekkushev, it wasn't the FSB that ordered the bombing, as Berezovsky later claimed, but the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[54]

Sentences

Two members of Gochiyayev's group that carried out the attacks, Adam Dekkushev and Yusuf Crymshamhalov, have been sentenced to life term each in a special-regime colony.[59] Both defendants have pleaded guilty only to some of the charges. For instance, Dekkushev acknowledged that he knew the explosives he transported were to be used for an act of terror. Dekkushev also confirmed Gochiyaev's role in the attacks.[60] Dekkushev was extradited to Russia on April 14, 2002 to stand trial. Crymshamhalov was apprehended and extradicted to Moscow.[54][59] In 2000, six bombers involved in the Buynaksk attack were arrested in Azerbaidjan and convicted of the bombing.[54] Achemez Gochiyaev, the head of the group that carried out the attacks and allegedly the main organizer, remains a fugitive, and is under an international search warrant.[59] In a statement released in January, 2004, the FSB said, "until we arrest Gochiyayev, the investigation of the apartment bloc bombings of 1999 will not be finished."[61]

Suspects and convictions

In September 1999, hundreds of Chechen nationals (out of more than 100,000 permanently living in Moscow) were briefly detained and interrogated in Moscow, as a wave of anti-Chechen feeling swept the city.[62] All of them turned out to be innocent. According to the official investigation, the following people either delivered explosives, stored them, or harbored other suspects:

Arab-born Mujahid Ibn al-Khattab who was killed by the FSB in 2002.

Moscow bombings

Volgodonsk bombing

  • Timur Batchayev (Ethnic Karachai,[73] killed in Georgia in the clash with police during which Krymshakhalov was arrested[47])
  • Zaur Batchayev (Ethnic Karachai[74] killed in Chechnya in 1999-2000[47])
  • Adam Dekkushev (Ethnic Karachai,[75] arrested in Georgia, threw a grenade at police during the arrest, extradited to Russia and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2004, after a two-month secret trial held without a jury[7][76])

Buinaksk bombing

  • Isa Zainutdinov (Ethnic Avar[73] and native of Dagestan,[75] sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2001[77])
  • Alisultan Salikhov (Ethnic Avar[73] and native of Dagestan,[75] sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2001[77])
  • Magomed Salikhov (Ethnic Avar[73] and native of Dagestan,[78] arrested in Azerbaijan in November 2004, extradited to Russia, found not guilty on the charge of terrorism by the jury on January 24, 2006; found guilty of participating in an armed force and illegal crossing of the national border,[79] he was retried again on the same charges on November 13, 2006 and again found not guilty, this time on all charges, including the ones he was found guilty of in the first trial.[80] According to Kommersant Salikhov admitted that he made a delivery of paint to Dagestan for Ibn al-Khattab, although he was not sure what was really delivered.[81])
  • Ziyavudin Ziyavudinov (Native of Dagestan,[82] arrested in Kazakhstan, extradited to Russia, sentenced to 24 years in April 2002[83])
  • Abdulkadyr Abdulkadyrov (Ethnic Avar[73] and native of Dagestan, sentenced to 9 years in March 2001[77])
  • Magomed Magomedov (Sentenced to 9 years in March 2001[77])
  • Zainutdin Zainutdinov (Ethnic Avar[73] and native of Dagestan, sentenced to 3 years in March 2001 and immediately released under amnesty[77])
  • Makhach Abdulsamedov (Native of Dagestan, sentenced to 3 years in March 2001 and immediately released under amnesty[77]).

Attempts at independent investigation

The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident.[84][85]

An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev, was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries.[86][87]

Mr. Kovalev said in 2002 that the theory of the FSB involvement published in the book of Litvinenko and Felshtinsky seemed to be doubtful.[88]

Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, both Duma members, have since died in apparent assassinations in April 2003 and July 2003 respectively.[89][90] Another member of the commission, Otto Lacis, was assaulted in November 2003[91] and two years later on November 3, 2005, died in hospital after a car accident.[92]

The commission asked lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin to investigate the case. Mr. Trepashkin claimed to have found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. Mr Trepashkin was unable to bring the alleged evidence to the court because he was arrested in October 2003 for illegal arms possession, just a few days shortly before he was to make his findings public.[93] He was sentenced by a Moscow military court to four years imprisonment for disclosing state secrets.[94] Amnesty International issued a statement that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities".[95] Romanovich subsequently died in a hit and run accident in Cyprus. According to Mr Trepashkin, his supervisors and people from the FSB promised not to arrest him if he left the Kovalev commission and started working together with the FSB "against Alexander Litvinenko".[96]

On March 24, 2000, two days before the presidential elections, NTV Russia featured the Ryazan events of Fall 1999 in the talk show Independent Investigation. The talk with the residents of the Ryazan apartment building along with FSB public relations director Alexander Zdanovich and Ryazan branch head Alexander Sergeyev was filmed few days earlier. On March 26 Boris Nemtsov voiced his concern over the possible shut-down of NTV for airing the talk.[97] Seven months later NTV general manager Igor Malashenko said at the JFK School of Government that Information Minister Mikhail Lesin warned him on several occasions. Mr. Malashenko's recollection of Mr. Lesin's warning was that by airing the talk show NTV "crossed the line" and that the NTV managers were "outlaws" in the eyes of the Kremlin.[98] According to Alexander Goldfarb, Mr. Malashenko told him that Valentin Yumashev brought a warning from the Kremlin one day before airing the show promising in no uncertain terms that the NTV managers "should consider themselves finished" if they would go ahead with the broadcast.(Goldfarb & Litvinenko 2007, p. 198)

Grigory Yavlinsky said that Artyom Borovik investigated the Moscow apartment bombings and prepared a series of publications about them.[99] Mr Borovik received numerous death threats and died in an airplane crash in March 2000.[100]

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former security service member Alexander Litvinenko who investigated the bombings were killed in 2006.[101]

Surviving victims of the Guryanova street bombing asked president Dmitry Medvedev to resume the investigation in 2008.[102]

Theory of Russian government involvement

Main article: Evidence of FSB involvement in the Russian apartment bombings

State Duma deputies Sergei Kovalev, Yuri Shchekochikhin and Sergei Yushenkov, cast doubts on the official version and sought an independent investigation. Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky, Anna Politkovskaya, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, as well as the secessionist Chechen authorities and former popular Russian politician Alexander Lebed, claimed that the 1999 bombings were a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB in order to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya, which boosted Prime Minister and former FSB Director Vladimir Putin's popularity, brought the pro-war Unity Party to the State Duma and him to the presidency within a few months.[103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115]

According to a theory, the bombings were a successful coup d'état organized by the FSB to bring future Russian president Vladimir Putin to power. Some of them described the bombings as typical "active measures" practicised by the KGB in the past. David Satter stated during his testimony in the United States House of Representatives,

"With Yeltsin and his family facing possible criminal prosecution, however, a plan was put into motion to put in place a successor who would guarantee that Yeltsin and his family would be safe from prosecution and the criminal division of property in the country would not be subject to reexamination. For “Operation Successor” to succeed, however, it was necessary to have a massive provocation. In my view, this provocation was the bombing in September, 1999 of the apartment building bombings in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk. In the aftermath of these attacks, which claimed 300 lives, a new war was launched against Chechnya. Putin, the newly appointed prime minister who was put in charge of that war, achieved overnight popularity. Yeltsin resigned early. Putin was elected president and his first act was to guarantee Yeltsin immunity from prosecution."[116]

Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky wrote that the September 4 attack in Buynaksk was probably conducted by a sabotage unit of twelve Russian GRU officers who acted on the orders of Colonel-General Valentin Korabelnikov.[24][117] They referred to the testimony of GRU officer Aleksey Galkin. According to this version, all other attacks were organized by FSB forces based on the following chain of command: "Putin (former director of the secret service, future president) - Patrushev (Putin's successor as director of the secret service) - secret service General German Ugryumov (director of the counter-terrorism department)." FSB officers Vladimir Romanovich, Ramazan Dyshekov and others directly carried out the bombings. Several Chechens were recruited by FSB agents to deliver explosives disguised as bags of sugar to Volgodonsk and Moscow: Adam Dekkushev, Yusuf Krymshakhalov, and Timur Batchaev. The Chechens believed that apartment buildings were merely temporarily storage places, and that the explosives would be used against federal military targets. Ethnic Karachai Achemez Gochiyaev rented the apartment basements as storage spaces on request from the FSB agent Ramazan Dyshekov.[24]

References

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  2. ^ Ответ Генпрокуратуры на депутатский запрос о взрывах в МосквеTemplate:Ru icon, machine translation.
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  51. ^ http://www.islamicawakening.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=640#4
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Bibliography

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