MOSCOW — Terrorists were responsible for the downing of at least one of two passenger planes that crashed in southern Russia this week, a Russian official acknowledged yesterday. ''According to preliminary information, at least one of the air crashes . . . has been the result of a terrorist act,'' Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Services (FSB), said.
His statement amounted to confirmation that terrorists had carried out the first co-ordinated attacks on air targets since Sept. 11, 2001.
Russian authorities are investigating both Chechen rebels and Islamic militants who may be linked to the attack.
An Islamic terrorist group called Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility on their website yesterday for both crashes, which killed 90 people. The group said it was avenging the deaths of Muslims in Chechnya and elsewhere. There was no way to check the claim's legitimacy.
Russian officials had previously played down the possibility that either crash resulted from terrorism, apparently not wanting to highlight an embarrassing security lapse days before Sunday's presidential election in Chechnya.
The two planes left Moscow's Domodedovo airport within an hour of each other Tuesday evening. Flight 1047, headed to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, disappeared from radar just before 11 p.m., shortly after sending a hijack signal. The other flight, bound for Volgograd, disappeared from radar just minutes before. The two planes crashed about 800 kilometres apart.
Mr. Ignatchenko said traces of the explosive hexogen, which has been used in previous bombings blamed on Chechen rebels, were found in the wreckage of the flight to Sochi, which had 46 people on board. No traces of explosives have been found in the remains of the flight to Volgograd, officials said.
Russian investigators are concentrating on two Chechen women, passengers on the planes who are suspected of carrying explosive devices. Amanta Nagayeva, a Chechen native, bought her ticket one hour before the flight to Volgograd departed, NTV television said.
NTV reported she was seated in the back of the plane, which was found severed from the fuselage.
The other woman has been identified as S. Dzhebirkhanova. Police are looking for relatives of both women in Chechnya.
Neither of the women had people waiting for them in Sochi or Volgograd, and no one has come forward since. Only fragments of their bodies have been found, leading investigators to believe they acted as suicide bombers.
In the last two years, women known as "black widows," said to be avenging the deaths of husbands, brothers or sons in Chechnya have been involved in some of Russia's most lethal suicide attacks, including last year's double bombing at an outdoor rock concert and another blast outside a hotel adjacent to Red Square.
The attack was a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long claimed that the war-torn region of Chechnya is under control and headed for peace.
Mr. Putin did not comment yesterday on developments in the air investigation.
Meanwhile, relatives continued the gruesome task of attempting to identify their loved ones.
"It was something really horrible" said one distraught relative on Russian television after identifying the body of a passenger on the Sochi flight.
Separately, an explosion went off yesterday night near a police building in the restive Dagestan region, adjacent to Chechnya, killing two people, a police official said.
Police officials told ITAR-Tass that the blast was caused by a gas canister, but emergency officials said it was detonated by an explosive device. The victims were a woman and a child, reports said.
Violence in Chechnya
A chronology of the key attacks linked to the Chechen rebellion since 1994:
June, 1995: Chechen rebels seize hundreds of hostages in a hospital in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk. More than 100 die.
Jan., 1996: Chechen fighters take hundreds hostage in a hospital at Kizlyar in Dagestan, then move them by bus to Pervomaiskoye, on Chechen border. After being pounded by Russian air and ground forces, most rebels escape but many hostages are killed.
Sept., 1999: Bombs destroy apartment blocks in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. More than 200 people are killed.
July 2-3, 2000: Chechen guerrillas launch five suicide bomb attacks on bases of Russian security forces within 24 hours. In the deadliest, at least 54 people are killed at a police commando dormitory in Argun, near Grozny.
Oct. 23-26, 2002: 129 hostages and 41 Chechen guerrillas are killed when Russian troops storm a Moscow theatre where rebels had taken 700 people captive three days earlier.
July 5, 2003: Two women suicide bombers kill 15 other people when they blow themselves up at an open-air rock festival at Moscow's Tushino airfield. Sixty are injured.
Aug. 1, 2003: A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives blows up a military hospital at Mozdok in North Ossetia, bordering Chechnya. The blast kills at least 50.
Dec. 5, 2003: An explosion tears through a morning commuter train just outside Yessentuki station in Russia's southern fringe. Forty-six people are killed and more than 160 are injured.
Dec. 9, 2003: A suicide bomber kills five other people near the Kremlin. At least 13 people are wounded.
Feb. 6, 2004: A suicide bombing kills at least 39 people and injures more than 100 on an underground train in Moscow. A previously unknown Chechen rebel group called Gazotan Murdash later claims responsibility.
May 9, 2004: Akhmad Kadyrov, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had hand-picked to become the Chechen president, is killed when a bomb explodes in a soccer stadium during holiday celebrations in Grozny, the capital. Reuters
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