Russians frustrated by spate of attacks

MOSCOW -- Russian law enforcement officials knew terrorists were going to strike somewhere in southern Russia on the eve of the country's parliamentary election, they just didn't know when, where and how.

They said they thwarted one attempt Friday when they discovered two suspected female suicide bombers in the southern village of Karabulak inside a car equipped with an explosive device. They prevented another Saturday when they found a bomb attached to a freight train in Kavkazskaya.

But the one they couldn't head off was the costliest. A suicide bomber detonated a massive explosion on a commuter train Friday morning near Yessentuki that killed 42 people and injured more than 150 others. With the attack, more than 280 people have been killed in such acts in Russia over the past year.

Despite the intensity and regularity of the attacks, Russian law enforcement has been virtually powerless to prevent them. Attacks in Moscow and across southern Russia have prompted calls for stricter security.

However, setting up new checkpoints and stepping up searches isn't likely to stem the tide of violence in southern Russia, where separatist guerrillas have been waging war to break off the small Islamic republic of Chechnya from the rest of the nation.

Nearly a decade of conflict has turned the mountainous province into a perilous wasteland where the economy long ago ground to a halt and young Chechen men the Russians say are in collusion with rebel forces are routinely victimized by Russian soldiers.

Locked into such bleak circumstances, and facing an even bleaker future, some Chechens find themselves easily swayed by Islamic elements looking for recruits for suicide bombing attacks, according to experts in Chechen affairs.

Evening the score with Russia, says Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, becomes the driving force in their lives.

"This happens on a very primitive level," says Politkovskaya, who has interviewed relatives of suicide bombers. "We're talking about revenge. You killed our people, so we will kill your people. And the goal is to inflict as much pain as possible."

Russian President Vladimir Putin rose to power in 1999, largely on the promise that he would ratchet up operations in Chechnya and end the war. Today, the conflict, which has killed thousands of Russian soldiers and Chechen civilians, is seen as one of Putin's starkest failures.

Nevertheless, he maintains a popularity rating that hovers around 70 percent and is likely to cement his grip on Russian government when voters go to the polls to elect a new parliament on Sunday.

His solution to the Chechen conflict has been to keep the republic within the fold of Russia but grant it wider autonomy. A spring referendum gave Chechnya a new constitution, and an election in October gave pro-Kremlin Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov the job as president. But both elections were regarded by most Chechens and much of the international community as rigged.

A major flaw in Putin's plan for Chechnya, many experts say, is that it fails to recognize that a large part of the Chechen population remains, if not loyal to the separatist cause, at least sympathetic to it. Experts say the only real solution to the Chechen conflict lies in negotiations between the Kremlin and separatists, and the involvement of the international community to help broker peace.

Putin, however, has staunchly rejected calls to negotiate with separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. And it is unlikely he would ever change his mind, said Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

"I'm afraid Putin is beyond that point," Felgenhauer said. "I don't see any way for him to backpedal now."

On Saturday, Russian officials stepped up security at train depots and polling stations as an answer to Friday's attack near Yessentuki. Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky vowed that the organizers of the attack would be tracked down.

The attack, carried out by a male suicide bomber and three female accomplices, was the second on the commuter train line in three months. In September, two bombs planted on the tracks killed six people on a train and injured scores more.

On Saturday, Russian newspapers criticized the Kremlin's inability to clamp down on the violence and head off such attacks.

"Employees of the (Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB) who yesterday worked on the site of the tragedy did not hide that they had received operational information at the end of last week about terrorist acts being prepared in southern Russia," wrote the Russian daily, Izvestia. "It is now clear that they were not neutralized in time."

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