The Republic in a "Security Cordon"

To strengthen suspicions, a raspy voice with an obvious southern accent, although these two elements could easily be faked, called the TASS agency yesterday, reading out in a fast and confident [calm, firm] tempo a communique in which the cause and authorship of the terrorist attacks were clearly stated for the first time. "The events in Buynaksk and Moscow are retribution," the manifesto reads, "for the terrorist operations of the Russian aviation against the civilian population of Dagestan and Chechnya. Not a single Russian bomb will go unpunished. We will answer death with death. Signed: Dagestan Liberation Army".

[Invasion of Chechen partisans into Dagestan and Russian bombings]

But no one had ever heard of the Dagestan Liberation Army until now. Chechen President Maskhadov, a moderate [conservative] who maintained a steady dialogue with the Russian authorities, stated that he did not know of its existence. Perhaps it is a cover name for an integralist group.

[I. Sergeyev on the new concentration of Basayev and Khattab near the borders of Dagestan]

17.09.99. Russia in Chaos. Russia, Strategy of Terror.

A truck bomb caused at least thirty deaths. 3 tons of explosives were prepared in the capital. Massacre in Volgodonsk, new sites of terrorist attacks discovered in Moscow.

Terror floods Russia. While mechanisms already prepared for explosions in a daily rhythm, up to September 21, are being discovered in the capital, the death toll struck a city 900 km to the south, Volgodonsk, close to a nuclear center, which fortunately has not yet been involved in the events. A truck packed with explosives with a power equal to at least 300 kg of TNT blew up a 9-story building where 400 people lived, immersed in sleep. 17 bodies were pulled from under the walls, another thirty are wounded, the lives of some are in danger.

Volgodonsk is the fifth terrorist attack since the beginning of September. The city, a large industrial center built around a dam and a not-yet-finished nuclear center, is located a hundred kilometers from Rostov-on-Don, the capital of this region bordering the North Caucasus, which was identified by security services among possible targets of the terrorist campaign. Along with Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, and "other places" that were not precisely specified.

Specialists also foresaw the fact that terrorists are using changing tactics, using a bomb loaded into some medium, a car or a truck, rather than one previously hidden in the heart of the target, as was successfully applied twice in Moscow. The building on Oktyabrskoye Shosse in Volgodonsk was checked the previous day. But no one stopped this truck, which was noticed at the entrance to the building a little after 5:30 am. The driver was seen getting out of it and hastily departing. A quarter of an hour later - a roar. [at the site of the explosion...]

The investigation conducted in Moscow forced one to imagine the impressive scale of the operation planned by the terrorists. With another 3 tons and 800 kg of explosive material seized in recent days, investigators uncovered a warehouse in the industrial district of Kapotnya with three and a half tons of cyclonite hidden in sugar bags totaling about 60. The tally of terror already predisposes one to horror, with as many devices intended to explode before the designated day of September 21. The timers, alarmingly handcrafted, are made using Japanese watches that are easy to find on the market. But, according to the special services, this is the work of authentic experts in their field.

18.09.99. US Aid Against Bombs

Clinton, touching on the terrorist attacks, expressed solidarity with Moscow. The FBI will cooperate with investigators.

[Clinton's speech, the FBI will arrive in the near future]

Investigators, thanks to daily work, made it possible to destroy the terrorist network, which for two weeks or a little more left a trail in the form of five terrorist attacks in which three hundred people died.

Almost the entire group consisting of a dozen people, from whom the terrorist attacks in Moscow originate, has been identified. Two components of the cell, or those presumed to be such, have been arrested and shown on TV emerging from the darkness of a cell.