An Islamic militant group in Russia’s North Caucasus has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the southern city of Volgograd last month and posted a video threatening to strike the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
There had been no previous claim of responsibility for the bombings, which killed 34 people and heightened security fears before next month’s Winter Games.
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In the video, two Russian-speaking men warned President Vladimir Putin that “if you hold these Olympics, we will give you a present for the innocent Muslim blood being spilled all around the world: In Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Syria.”
They added that “for the tourists who come, there will be a present, too.”
In a statement posted with the video on its website, the militant group Vilayat Dagestan claimed responsibility for the Volgograd bombings.
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According to officials, the blast that tore through an electric bus in Volgograd on 30 December was probably carried out by suicide bombers from the same organisation behind an explosion at a railway station a day earlier.
The moment of the 29 December explosion was caught by a security camera facing the train station.
Russian TV also released CCTV footage of the explosion inside the train station and identified two suspected suicide bombers.
The Vilayat Dagestan video claims that the two men, identified with single names as Suleiman and Abdurakhman, were the suicide bombers in the Volgograd attacks that killed 34 people.
During much of the 49-minute video, the two men speak to the camera while holding Kalashnikov automatic rifles.
Behind them hang black banners with Arabic religious phrases similar to those used by al-Qaida.
Vilayat Dagestan is one of the groups that make up the so-called Caucasus Emirate, which seeks to establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus, a region just to the east of Sochi on Russia’s southern border.
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Dagestan, one of several predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus, has become the centre of the Islamic insurgency that has spread throughout the region following separatist wars in neighbouring Chechnya.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on Friday that Russia “will do everything” to guarantee security at the Winter Games due to start on 7 February.
“If we show our weakness and fear and let others to notice it, it will help terrorists to achieve their goals,” he said in the interview with China Central Television (CCTV).
In response to the threat, Russia has introduced sweeping security measures for the Sochi Games.
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The Chechen leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Doku Umarov, had ordered a halt to attacks on civilian targets in 2012, but he rescinded that order in July and urged his followers to try to undermine the Olympics.
The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya claimed last week that Umarov was dead, but the claim couldn’t be verified.
The Vilayat Dagestan statement said the Volgograd attacks were carried out in part because of Umarov’s order, but didn’t specifically say he had ordered them.
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