Moscow sees terrorist hand in air crashes

Russian investigators have finally admitted that terrorists were almost certainly responsible for the destruction of the two passenger planes which crashed on Tuesday, five days before the Chechen presidential election.

Traces of explosives have been found in one of the wrecks and a website linked to Islamist militants has claimed that the action was connected to Russia's war on the Chechen separatists.

After two days in which the authorities were criticised for dismissing the possibility of terrorist involvement in the crashes, the Federal Security Service (FSB) admitted: "During an investigation of the remains of the Tu-154 plane, traces of explosives were found."

The plane came down near Rostov on Don, killing everyone on board.

The admission was made a few hours after a little-known Islamist group claimed responsibility for the crashes, which happened within minutes of each other to two flights from Moscow, and killed a total of 89 people.

The site said: "Our mujahideen in the Islambouli Brigades were able to hijack two Russian planes and they were successful, despite the obstacles that faced them at the beginning."

It added that the attack was "aimed at helping our Muslim brothers in Chechnya and other Muslim countries enduring Russia's atheism."

Tomorrow Chechnya is due to elect a new president to succeed Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bombing during May Day celebrations in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Responsibility for the two crashes is being placed at two women of Chechen origin on the passenger lists, one in each plane.

The Islambouli Brigades' statement claimed that there were five terrorists on each plane, but the investigation is concentrating on two names: S Dzhebirkhanova and Amanta Nagayeva.

No relatives of the women have come forward in connection with their deaths in the crashes.

There are conflicting reports that only parts of their bodies were found in the wreckage, possibly suggesting that they had been at the centre of explosions.

Chechen rebels have often tried to time their attacks to coincide with significant events, and the FSB said that the explosive found at the crash site - hexogen - was a type often used by Chechen terrorists.

It was used in the series of bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999, blamed on Chechen rebels, which killed more than 300 people; and in last year's suicide bombings in Moscow, at a rock concert and a hotel near the Kremlin.

An FSB spokeswoman said: "The investigation process produced information which has allowed us to identify a number of people with possible links to the terrorist act that was committed on the Tu-154."

Within a day of the crashes the FSB said that no traces of explosives had been found in the wreckage of the planes.

The Russian media has heavily criticised the government for rebutting the theory of a terrorist attack; it has been alleged that the Kremlin did not want to blame terrorists until after the election.

Other new details about the crashes underline the likelihood that they were the result of a terrorist attack.

The pilot of the Tu-154, flying to Sochi, sent a hijack alarm signal three times, an air traffic controller in the area where the plane crashed told the Itar-Tass news agency.

Another source told the agency that two signals were given.

There are varying reports that an alarm signal was sent from the other plane, the Tu-134, flying to Volgograd, which crashed within a few minutes of the first plane.

Interfax reported Victor Ilyu khin, a member of the Russian duma's (parliament) security committee, as saying that the fact that neither planes' crew managed to speak to air traffic control before crashing showed that there "was either an explosion or the pilots were shot".

Examination of the wreckage in both cases pointed to explosions at the back of the planes, close to or in the toilets, according to a report given to the president's envoy in the south, Vladimir Yakovlev, the website gazeta.ru reported.