EU leiders spreken woede uit over bomaanslagen in Moskou (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Top EU officials on Monday expressed their shock over the two suicide bombing attacks on the Moscow metro which killed at least 36 people and injured over 70.
The explosions occurred in two different metro stations during the Monday morning rush hour and were carried out by female suicide bombers, Russian prosecutors said. One metro stop is close to Russia's intelligence agency FSB, who said it was likely the two were Islamist Chechen rebels. Similar bombings in 2004 were also blamed on independence fighters from Russia's Caucasian province.
"I am deeply shocked by the terrorist attacks perpetrated this morning in Moscow's metro (...) I condemned in the strongest terms these acts of cowardice for which there is no justification," EU council President Herman Van Rompuy i said in a statement.
Other top officials followed suit, including Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen i and EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso i. "The EU stands resolutely together with the Russian authorities in its efforts to counter terrorism in all its forms," Mr Barroso said.
The head of the EU legislature, Jerzy Buzek i made similar remarks, while adding that the parliament was offering assistance to the Russian authorities in their investigations.
"It is very important to carry out a full investigation in order to learn what exactly is at the root of this dreadful attack," Mr Buzek stressed.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has meanwhile called for increased security measures on the public transport system nationwide, as the problem should not be looked at only "to a particular type of transport and a particular city."
For his part, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin i expressed confidence that "terrorists will be destroyed."
Back in 1999, after a series of bombings on Moscow apartment buildings, Mr Putin ordered a mass-scale military operation in Chechnya which killed at least 60 civilians and was stopped only when a Kremlin-friendly leader was put in charge of the province.
Hundreds of innocent civilians died throughout the years due to clashes between the Chechen rebels and Russian forces, who show little consideration for hostages. In 2002, when Chechens seized a theatre in Moscow, Russian police refused to negotiate and gassed the entire building, killing one hundred and thirty of the Russian hostages as well as all of the terrorists.
A similar hostage taking by Chechen rebels at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, left over 300 hostages dead, including 186 children, when the Russians took over the building.