MOSCOW - Two suicide bombers in trucks rammed through security gates at the headquarters for Chechnya's Kremlin-backed government yesterday and detonated powerful blasts, killing at least 46 people in an attack Moscow linked to Chechen separatists.
Many of the victims were in the building's first-floor dining hall. Dozens of dazed survivors staggered from the rubble, some with faces covered in blood. Bodies were found hundreds of yards from the building.
Emergency rescue officials estimated the number injured at 70, though they said that count would probably rise. At hospitals, wounded survivors on stretchers filled hallways, overwhelming medical personnel and forcing authorities to transport some of the injured to neighboring provinces.
The attacks in the Chechen capital of Grozny gave Russians another grim reminder that, despite the Kremlin's insistence that stability is returning to the war-battered southern republic, the conflict with Chechen rebels roils on with no prospect for peace in sight.
In late October, armed Chechen guerrillas took more than 800 people hostage at a Moscow theater. The crisis ended with the deaths of 129 hostages, most from a gas used by Russian commandos to subdue the guerrillas.
This time, the attack occurred in the form of suicide bombers at the wheel of two trucks that together carried explosives roughly equivalent to a ton of TNT, Russian authorities said.
Both drivers apparently died in the blasts. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Russian authorities said they suspected Chechen separatists.
Akhmed Zakayev, the top envoy for Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and wanted by the Kremlin on terrorism charges, said in an interview on Russian radio yesterday that the separatist movement does not engage in suicide bombings and called the attacks "an act of terrorism."
At the same time, he pointed to atrocities committed against Chechens by Russian soldiers, saying, "If one evaluates what has happened in the context of everyday Chechnya life, this is a successful act of retribution on behalf of the Chechens."
Russia's war to quell the Chechen separatist movement in the largely Islamic province entered its fourth year this fall. Chechen rebels are heavily outgunned and outmanned, but Russian soldiers are killed almost every week, by mines planted by rebels or in ambushes and skirmishes.
The four-story building targeted yesterday is one of the few in war-ruined Grozny that had survived the conflict nearly unscathed. It is the seat for the Moscow-appointed administration that governs Chechnya and houses the office of the republic's pro-Moscow administration chief, Akhmed Kadyrov. Along with Kadyrov's house, the administration building is the most heavily fortified structure in Grozny.
Neither Kadyrov nor Mikhail Babich, Chechnya's newly appointed prime minister, was in the building at the time of the attack. About 200 people work there. Authorities said they did not know how many were inside.
The attack occurred about 2:20 p.m. One suicide bombers drove a delivery truck, the other a four-wheel-drive truck used by the Russian military.
It was unclear how both trucks were able to get through three heavily guarded, separate security gates at the front of the building. Initial media reports indicated that the trucks rammed through all three sets of gates. But Russia's NTV network reported that the bombers might have been allowed to pass through the first two sets of gates before crashing through the third.
The larger delivery truck detonated yards from the building. About 30 seconds later, the smaller vehicle exploded in a parking lot filled with government cars. The blasts shattered windows of nearby buildings and carved a 20-foot-wide crater in the ground.
Kadyrov criticized the level of security outside the administration building and questioned how the trucks eluded a ban on all vehicle traffic that had been issued yesterday morning in Grozny.
"How could the terrorists have managed to break through three fences around the government building?" Kadyrov told the Russian news agency, Interfax. "The guards' actions must be investigated. Just as before, the terrorists act as if they were masters of Grozny."
Rescue work continued through the night. As people trapped underneath piles of rubble screamed for help, rescue workers frantically dug through mounds of broken concrete and glass to pinpoint their location. At least four people had been pulled alive from the wreckage late last night.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin vowed that "no sort of terrorist crimes will break the will and aspirations of the people of Chechnya for a peaceful life," according to a statement from the presidential press service.
Alex Rodriguez writes for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.