Probe Sought Into Bombings By Russias Secret Services

A TOP presidential candidate, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, has called for a parliamentary probe into allegations that terrorist bombings that killed 300 people last September might have been carried out by Russia's secret services.

"There is growing evidence that the blasts were staged to increase the popularity of (acting President Vladimir) Putin ahead of the elections," Mr. Zyuganov said in remarks to the national Radio Rossiya. Mr Zyuganov said the police have failed to identify those responsible for the series of apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities, and said he would press the State Duma to set up an independent probe.

 

The Kremlin blamed the explosions on terrorists from separatist Chechnya, and used the acts as a key reason for launching a full-scale military invasion of the rebel republic in October.

Mr Putin, the then Prime Minister, reaped the rewards of Moscow's stern and decisive military reaction in the form of skyrocketing popularity.

With elections slated for March 26, barely a week away, the latest polls show that 53 per cent of Russians would vote for Mr Putin, as against just 18 per cent for his nearest rival, Mr Zyuganov.

But the issue of the September bombings, which killed hundreds of apartment dwellers in their sleep, remains deeply contentious for many Russians. The Chechen rebels, who are usually quick to claim credit for their actions, have denied all responsibility in the blasts. Russian security police have arrested only one suspect in the bombings, and provided journalists with a list of 9 others. None of the named suspects are ethnic Chechens.

"Russia is a land of conspiracy theories, but there is a lot of substance to the suspicion that our secret services may have somehow been involved in these explosions," says Nikolai Zyubov, an independent analyst.

"It seemed very politically convenient that those bombings gave the Kremlin a powerful cause to rally public opinion just on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections," he says.

The only people ever caught actually planting a bomb, in the central Russian city of Ryazan on the night of September 22, turned out to be a team from the Federal Security Service (FSB), domestic successor to the Soviet KGB.