Warning: Graphic Images
A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people at a packed train station in Russia on Sunday, raising the specter of grisly terror attacks when the country hosts the upcoming Winter Olympics in less than six weeks.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly blast, which also injured scores of other victims in Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad.
But it followed a recent call by rebel Chechen warlord Doku Umarov for “maximum force” against civilians in Russia, including at the Sochi Games scheduled to start Feb. 7.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has vowed that the Sochi Games will be the “safest Olympics in history,” ordered law enforcement agencies to beef up security at transit stations and airports.
Officials issued conflicting statements on the number of casualties throughout the day, and it was unclear whether the attacker — who detonated an explosive device packed with shrapnel — was male or female.
Initial reports said the bomber was a woman, possibly one of the revenge-seeking Islamic “Black Widows” whose Chechen-rebel husbands have been killed by Russian forces.
The “LifeNews” Russian Web site, which has reported ties to the country’s security agencies, posted what it claimed was a photo of her severed head, its long brown hair spread across the floor amid a pile of debris.
Both the Web site and the state-run RIA Novosti news service identified the bomber as Oksana Aslanova, a Dagestani woman who reportedly had two successive husbands killed in battle.
But the Interfax news agency, citing law-enforcement sources, said that surveillance video suggested the bomber was a man and that a torn male finger inside a hand-grenade safety pin was found near the site of the explosion.
The bombing was the second in Russian in three days, and the second in Volgograd in just over two months.
TV news reports showed a huge orange fireball filling the hall of the city’s main rail station, which was busier than usual as people traveled to celebrate the New Year, one of Russia’s major holidays.
The force of the blast blew out the heavy front doors of the sprawling, three-story building, a Stalinesque architectural monument topped with a clocktower and Soviet-style star.
Afterward, thick black smoke poured out of its shattered windows as survivors scattered along rain-soaked streets.
Officials said the explosion took place near the metal detectors at the main entrance to the station, and that the death toll could have been much higher if the attacker had made it into the waiting area.
The device — which exploded with the force of about 22 pounds of TNT — was apparently detonated when a police sergeant grew suspicious and raced over to confront the bomber. That cop was killed, and several others were wounded.
“People were lying on the ground, screaming and calling for help,” witness Alexander Koblyakov told Rossiya-24 TV.
“I helped carry out a police officer whose head and face were covered in blood. He couldn’t speak.”
With Post wire services