Clues in Russian Train Bombing Point to Caucasus

MOSCOW Dec. 1, 2009 — -- Russia's chief investigator suggested today that militants from Russia's volatile south are to blame for the train blast north of Moscow that killed 27 people last week.

All 27 victims of Friday's train blast that derailed the high speed Nevsky Express north of Moscow have been found and identified, Russia's emergency services said today. Another 90 people were hospitalized in what officials labeled a terrorist attack.

Alexander Bastrykin said that the second explosion detonated by a cell phone on Saturday while investigators were on the scene suggests that the officials may have been the actual targets and that "such tactics are used by the terrorists in the North Caucasus."

The allegations came out in a preview of an interview to be published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Wednesday.

Authorities are following new clues, saying today that they found a gray jacket with letters from a prison inmate in it near the scene of the explosion. On Monday they released a sketch of a male suspect as a stocky 50 to 55 year-old who was wearing a red wig.

Police also released a basic description of a second man suspected in the bombing, described as a tall dark-haired man in his 30s.

Authorities told state-run news agency RIA Novosti that they are also looking for a woman in a light-colored jacket driving a Lada car.

The police have located a house where they believe the suspects were based and found four sets of DNA, including a woman's, officials said.

The train blast explosion Friday night derailed the last three cars on the Nevsky Express, a high-speed train traveling to St. Petersburg from Moscow. The bomb consisted of up to 15 pounds of explosives and detonated under the second-to-last car.

A Neo-Nazi group claimed responsibility on Saturday, but an attack by ultra-nationalists has been downplayed by many Russian security experts because of their lack of resources and expertise. They say that careful planning and execution point to separatist militants from the country's volatile North Caucasus region.