Moscow – A suicide bomber blew herself up and killed an officer Friday in an attack on police carrying out a special operation against rebels, possibly including her husband, in Ingushetia, officials said.
The attack came after a wave of bombings, including strikes on the Moscow metro, killed more than 50 Russians and raised fears the women were part of a larger brigade of so-called Black Widow suicide bombers.
The young woman targeted police officers involved in a special operation against alleged militants Friday morning in the village of Ekazhevo on the outskirts of Ingushetia’s main city of Nazran, local police said.
"A young woman walked up to them. She shot our officers who were standing by the police barrier tape, wounding one. After that, her suicide belt exploded," a police source told AFP by telephone.
The officer later died in hospital, police spokeswoman Madina Khadziyeva told AFP.
She said the woman carried a passport issued to Marina Yevloyeva, 25 – a resident of the Nazran district but native of Grozny, the capital of the neighbouring war-torn region of Chechnya.
The Interfax news agency reported investigators had information that the suicide bomber was the wife of one of the three rebels targeted in the special operation.
A spokeswoman for the local investigators however said she could not confirm the information.
The three militants, who had barricaded themselves in a house in Ekazhevo, died after blowing themselves up before FSB security forces could break in, the investigative committee of prosecutors said in a statement.
Two policemen were wounded in the operation, it said.
"The FSB carried out a special operation to detain three unidentified men, members of an illegal armed group, who put up armed resistance," the investigators’ statement said.
"As a result, two soldiers were hospitalized. The attackers died after blowing themselves up."
The new attacks come amid fears that the suicide bombings are all connected to one Islamist brigade of female suicide bombers that is prepared to carry out further strikes.
The women are known as Black Widow bombers because they have lost male relatives in clashes between militants and federal forces.
Ingushetia is a predominantly Muslim province of Russia’s North Caucasus which neighbors war-torn Chechnya and has been troubled in recent years by a violent Islamist insurgency.
Russian authorities have sought to tighten security and boost efforts to hunt down insurgents since a pair of suicide bombers attacked the Moscow metro last week, killing 40 people.
That was followed by suicide bombings in Dagestan that killed 12 people, including a local police chief.
The so-called "Caucasus Emirate", an Islamist group led by Chechen rebel warlord Doku Umarov, has claimed responsibility for the metro attacks.
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