Russia has identified two suicide bombers responsible for attacks that killed 34 people in the city of Volgograd last month and arrested two suspected accomplices in the violence-torn Dagestan province, officials said on Thursday.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the bombers, whose attacks raised fears of further violence before the Sochi Winter Olympics next week, were members of a militant group in Dagestan in the restive North Caucasus in southern Russia.
A bombing at the railway station in Volgograd on 29 December was followed a day later by a blast that ripped apart a trolleybus in the city 700 km (400 miles) northeast of Sochi, where the Olympics start on 7 February.
The blasts were the deadliest attacks in Russia outside the North Caucasus, the cradle of an Islamist insurgency whose leader has urged fighters to prevent the Olympics going ahead, since a bomber killed 37 people at a Moscow airport in 2011.
The head of security for the Olympics issued Russia’s latest assurance about security at the Sochi Games, a major prestige project for President Vladimir Putin, saying there was ‘no concrete threat’.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the bombers, whose attacks raised fears of further violence before the Sochi Winter Olympics next week, were members of a militant group in Dagestan in the restive North Caucasus in southern Russia.
A bombing at the railway station in Volgograd on 29 December was followed a day later by a blast that ripped apart a trolleybus in the city 700 km (400 miles) northeast of Sochi, where the Olympics start on 7 February.
The blasts were the deadliest attacks in Russia outside the North Caucasus, the cradle of an Islamist insurgency whose leader has urged fighters to prevent the Olympics going ahead, since a bomber killed 37 people at a Moscow airport in 2011.
The head of security for the Olympics issued Russia’s latest assurance about security at the Sochi Games, a major prestige project for President Vladimir Putin, saying there was ‘no concrete threat’.