St Petersburg

St Petersburg Metro Explosion Was 'deafening', Witness Says

... said. "Everybody fell to the right. Not down to the floor, but on seats. Video: Passengers try to escape after an explosion on a train in St Petersburg (ABC News). "When we were climbing out the train carriage collapsed, all of it. Everything went black, it started to fall apart and while we were approaching [the station]. "I just thought oh God, please let us reach the station. And then when I looked back there were huge number of people lying on the floor.". As she emerged from the carriage, Ms Kirillova saw bodies. "It was scary. And when we left they took out several people covered in blood," she said. "[There was] a woman, her whole face and nose — all of it was a large massive wound.". Victims were 'blackened', had their clothes burned. Anna Sventik, a St Petersburg resident, was traveling on a metro train that passed through the same station moments after the blast. "Our train slowed down a bit, and one woman started having hysterics when she saw the people lying on the platform, blackened, in some ...

The Likely Culprits Behind The St. Petersburg Bombing

... attacks in Russian cities. First, there are Chechen separatists who have mounted a wide range of terrorist attacks in Russia. The Russians have been waging wars with these separatists since the 19 th century. Peter Bergen. David Sterman. Leo Tolstoy served in an artillery regiment in the Caucasus and wrote about his experience in "The Cossacks," saying of the Chechens: "No one spoke of hatred for the Russians. The feeling which the Chechens felt, both young and old, was stronger than hatred.". That hatred lingers. In 2002, Chechen militants raided a Moscow theater, where they took hundreds hostage and 130 were killed. Two years later, Chechen militants bombed a metro station in Moscow, killing 39. In 2004, Chechen militants took hundreds of students and others hostage at a school in Beslan. The resultant multi-day siege, which Russia broke with the use of tanks, resulted in more than 300 deaths. Read More. Militants continued such attacks through the late 2000 s. In 2009, ...

St. Petersburg Isn't Saving Money For A New Tampa Bay Rays Stadium, But Says It Can Help Pay For One

... which could help fund Tampa Bay Rays stadium. 6 Months Ago. St. Petersburg Little League one of several nationwide missing money. 5 Months Ago. The bonds were paid in 2015. This year, almost all the $3.125 million the city used to spend annually on bonds has been spent on 18 projects ranging from mentoring programs, office supplies and helping the homeless. In the next fiscal year, it will be spent on the city's new police headquarters. But if St. Petersburg were to keep the Rays — the team has long eyed a Tampa stadium — should the city be squirreling away that money to help build a stadium. Mayor Rick Kriseman doesn't seem to think so. If the Rays wish to stay, he said St. Petersburg will be able to help pay for a stadium in much the same way it helped pay to build what is now known as the Trop in 1990: construction bonds financed by the city and the county's tourist tax. The city also has a new funding source it didn't have three decades ago: the future development rights to Tropicana Field. "I'm confident that the financing isn't going to be a challenge," the ...

St. Petersburg Subway Bombing Reveals Terror Vulnerability

... of their open access and large crowds, but experts said Monday that Russian transportation security has been less stringent than in the U. S. A bomb with about 2.2 pounds of explosives detonated in a subway car at the Tekhnologichesky Institut station, killing 11 people and injuring dozens, according to the Interfax news agency. A second explosive device rigged with shrapnel was found and defused at the Vosstaniya Square station. Authorities are searching for two suspects, according to Interfax. Subways have increasingly become the target of terror bombings because of the number of entrances and the volume of passengers, according to security experts. “The scariest part is that it’s no longer instructions from al-Qaeda. Nowadays, it’s the guy who’s practicing radical terrorism in his living room,” John Poncy, a security expert who is CEO of The Densus Group and a former Army soldier, told USA TODAY. “I just think it’s a matter of time — I hate to say this — before it hits a subway system in the United States.”. Read more. Subway attacks: Terrorists have targeted rail before. Europe has been defending against subway bombings for years. • Suicide bombers attacked the ...

Why Suspicion Over St Petersburg Metro Attack Is Likely To Fall On Islamist Groups

... attacks by Chechens, such as the mass hostage taking at the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow in 2002 or at School Number One in Beslan in 2004, were accompanied by demands for a Russian withdrawal from Chechnya , rather than mass slaughter as their primary goal. Later, the Chechen independence movement renamed itself the Caucasus Emirate, which sought to impose an Islamic state across the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region, and drew fighters from neighbouring republics such as Dagestan. The Caucasus Emirate took responsibility for a 2009 train bombing, the 2010 Moscow metro bombings and the 2011 suicide attack at the city’s Domodedovo airport. Doku Umarov, the self-styled emir of the insurgency movement, was killed in 2013, apparently after Russian security services sent poisoned food to him through middle men. Since then the group’s ability to strike at the heart ...

St Petersburg Metro Explosion Suspect 'from Central Asia

... as it allowed people to be rescued quickly. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said 10 people had died - seven at the scene, one in an ambulance and two in hospital. The death toll was later raised to 11. Andrei Przhezdomsky, the head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, said the explosion was caused by "an unidentified explosive device". President Putin said all causes, especially terrorism, were being investigated. The discovery of an explosive device at another station, Ploshchad Vosstaniya, also suggested a co-ordinated attack. Interfax said the focus was now on a 23-year-old man from Central Asia known to have links to radical Islam. The news agency said the man died in a suicide blast and was identified through his remains. But the president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not comment on reports a suicide bomber was to blame. Another ...

St. Petersburg Subway Train Blast Kills At Least 10

... twisted outward, the explosion destroying the inside of the car and ripping into passengers. You see images of people lying on the ground dazed and, of course, the - just evacuation of panic passengers. But of course, all this suggests that the explosion was inside the car. GREENE: And just to orient people, I mean, St. Petersburg, not as big a city as Moscow, but a huge, huge city, one with, I mean, a lot of tourists, a lot of people commuting, a lot of historic buildings - if we're talking about the center of St. Petersburg. MAYNES: That's right. This is the very center, and it's a very touristy town. A lot of tourists go to St. Petersburg. You know, I think there's - of course, they'll be initially looking at who might be behind this blast. There's sort of several likely suspects I think you'll hear the authorities go to very soon. One is, of course, ongoing problems they have in ...

St Petersburg Blast And Gibraltar Row

... is unlikely to scupper negotiations, it is a reminder of how difficult they are going to be. Easter row. The lead in the Daily Telegraph is a story about the Church of England's anger at the National Trust for leaving the word "Easter" out of publicity for its annual egg hunt. A spokesman for the trust insists the organisation is "in no way downplaying the significance of Easter", but that chocolate firm Cadbury - which is sponsoring the event - is responsible for the branding. Cadbury tells the Telegraph that it wants to appeal to "people from all faiths". But the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, is quoted saying that its decision is tantamount to "spitting on the grave" of the firm's founder, John Cadbury, because he was a devout Quaker. Slap threat. The Daily Mail believes questions remain unanswered about the threat made by Sunderland football manager David Moyes that he would slap a BBC radio reporter, because she had asked him an awkward question. The paper wants to know why, when the ...