- Font:
- +
- -
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Russian authorities named the suicide bomber who targeted Moscow's airport and arrested his teenage brother and sister, an official said Wednesday.
The Jan. 24 bombing of Domodedovo airport was conducted by 20-year-old Magomed Yevloyev, said an official working with Russia's top investigative agency in the province of Ingushetia. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
Video: Moscow suicide bomber: 'I'll kill you all' (on this page)Officials have previously said that the bomber was a 20-year-old man from the Caucasus, but didn't give his name.
-
-
Castaway's parents thought they would never see him again
The father of Pacific castaway Jose Salvador Alvarenga said he was told his long-lost son vanished on a fishing trip but he didn’t have the heart to break the news to his ailing wife.
- Scotland legalizes same-sex marriage
- Weapons deal strengthened Assad: US intel chief
- Outcry over the fate of Sochi's stray dogs
- Olympic construction leaves Sochi residents in the cold
-
Chechen rebel warlord Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed 36 and injured more than 180.
A court in Ingushetia's provincial capital, Magas, also ordered the arrest of Yevloyev's 15-year-old brother and 16-year old sister, suspected of involvement in the attack, the official said. They also arrested another resident of Yevloyev's home village of Ali-Yurt on the same charges.
The Itar-Tass news agency named the brother as Akhmed and sister as Fatima Yevloyev.
Story: Islamist rebel says he ordered Russian airport bombingA respected human rights activist from Ingushetia condemned the arrest of the underage suspects. "This is absurd and savage — to arrest people only because they are relatives of a suspected terrorist," Magomed Khazbiyev told the daily Kommersant.
ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday, however, that the investigators had found traces of explosives used in the airport bombing on the hands of Yevloyev's arrested brother.
Umarov said in a video posted Monday that he ordered the airport bombing and that many more such attacks will follow if Russia does not allow the Caucasus to become an independent Islamic state governed by Shariah law.
In another video released over the weekend Umarov appeared with a young man whom he said was being sent to Moscow on a suicide mission. No mention was made of the airport bombing, and it was unclear when the video was made. Kommersant quoted a local imam as saying that the man in the video closely resembled Yevloyev.
Video: Moscow airport blast, Russia on high alert (on this page)Umarov has claimed responsibility for an array of terrorist attacks, including last year's double suicide bombing of the Moscow subway system that killed 40 people. He is seen more as an ideological than a military figure, as many militant cells operate autonomously and shun centralized command.
Some observers have questioned Umarov's claim.
Ben West, an analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence analysis company, said in a written comment that Umarov could have claimed the attack to boost his profile after a fallout with other rebel leaders last fall. Russian officials have said that militants in Chechnya are linked to al-Qaida and other foreign terror groups and depend on them for funding.
Video: Terror expert: Blast targeted foreigners (on this page)West said that Umarov has not had any known links to the militants in Ingushetia, which raises doubts about his claim of responsibility.
Chechen rebels have fought two separatist wars against Russian forces since 1994. Major offensives in the second war died down about a decade ago, but the Islamic insurgency has spread across neighboring North Caucasus provinces, stoked by poverty, official corruption and abuses against civilians by security forces.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
“ ”