Notorious Chechen Rebel Says He Ordered Moscow Subway Bombing

MOSCOW March 31, 2010— -- A notorious Chechen rebel leader has claimed responsibility for ordering the twin suicide attacks on Moscow's subway system this week that left 39 people dead and he warned that more attacks are on the way.

In a video posted online tonight, Doku Umarov boasted that "these two operations were done on my order and they're not the last ones, inshallah," using the Arabic for "God willing."

Umarov, the self-proclaimed Emir of the Caucasus Emirate, said the attacks were in response to an operation by Russia's security services in February that killed 18 insurgents in the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia.

"They were cruelly killed by these bandits who are called FSB [Russia's Federal Security Services]," he says.

"Soon you will see and hear another operation in response to those mujahedeen who died on February 11th," he finishes. "War will come to your streets, inshallah, and you will feel it with your own lives and skin."

Earlier today, two suicide bombers attacked police in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, killing at least 12 people and injuring 27.

Two traffic policemen in Dagestan's town of Kizlyar were killed when they tried to stop a car driven by a suicide bomber. Twenty minutes later, a second bomber dressed as a police officer detonated his explosives at the site of the first blast as investigators inspected the wreckage. The local police chief was among the victims.

Authorities in the North Caucasus region of Russia are a frequent target of Islamic insurgents who have been fighting for decades for a separate Muslim state. There has been a spate of attacks in Dagestan, Ingushetia and neighboring Chechnya the past year as Russia struggles to quash the insurgency.

Umarov did not claim responsibility for today's attack but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he did not rule out that the same terrorist group could be behind both.