#18 - JRL 7276
gazeta.ru
August 4, 2003
Mozdok tragedy blamed on negligence
As the rescue teams finished sifting through the debris of the Mozdok military hospital, destroyed by a truck bomb blast on Friday, the Defence Ministry said the act of terror had become possible because the local officers’ failure to observe the basic security rules. The commander of the Mozdok garrison has been suspended from post pending investigation. Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov announced the decision on Saturday, after a brief inspection of the scene of the explosion.
On Sunday Emergencies Ministry’s teams abandoned rescue efforts at the Mozdok military hospital, destroyed by a suicide-bomber on Friday evening. An explosives-laden KAMAZ truck rammed through the gates of the hospital and exploded, killing 50 and injuring 79. More than 70 people remained in local hospitals on Sunday, with the most serious cases airlifted to Moscow and St.Petersburg.
“There are no human remains in the area covered by rescue teams,” an Emergencies Ministry official Sergei Salov told reporters on Sunday, as over a thousand rescuers from Moscow, Ingushetia and North Ossetia withdrew from the scene of the tragedy.
Most of those killed in the attack were federal military men - officers, soldiers and sergeants. The hospital No.1458 of Mozdok military garrison is one of the main hospitals in the Northern Caucasus and it was always packed with the woundedfrom Chechnya and surrounding regions.
According to some reports, 119 people, including 98 patients and 21 medical personnel were in the hospital and in summer tents installed on its territory at the moment of the blast.
Eyewitnesses said that the truck bomb, driven by a single terrorist, drove though the hospital gates around 19-00 on Friday and exploded, bringing down most of the building. Only one wall remained of the four-storey hospital. Explosives experts estimated the power of the blast at 1,000 kilograms TNT equivalent. The blast was so powerful it could be heard throughout the city and the mushroom cloud was seen for kilometers around. Surrounding buildings were seriously damaged by the blast wave.
The terrorist act followed the same scenario as the attack on the government compound in Grozny in December last year when over 70 people were killed after two vehicles driven by suicide bombers passed security cordons at high speed and exploded in the immediate proximity to the building.
Sergei Fridinsky, Prosecutor General’s deputy for the South Federal District, arrived in Mozdok on Saturday. Speaking from the scene of the attack the prosecutor blamed the tragedy not only on the Chechen separatist, but also on the military who had failed to carry out the basic security measures.
"This was a well-prepared and well-planned terrorist act," he has told the NTV television. "We have to admit... criminals are continuing to exploit weak points in the defences of military bases," he said alluding, evidently, to the previous suicide attack on the military personnel based in Mozdok. In early June a Chechen woman blew herself up near a bus that carried military pilots to an aerodrome near Mozdok from where military aircraft take off for Chechnya.
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, instructed by Vladimir Putin to inspect the destroyed hospital, arrived in North Ossetia on Saturday morning. The minister inspected the fence through which the suicide bomber drove the truck packed with explosives. He also watched the clean-up effort. Speaking at a news conference in Mozdok, Ivanov accused the command of the local garrison of their failure to observe safety regulations. In particular, he said, in defiance of the Defence Ministry’s orders the approaches to the hospital gate were not equipped with “means to forcefully stop motor vehicles” – in other words, with several concrete blocks that make it impossible to drive through a checkpoint at high speed.
"In connection with this I have decided to suspend the commander of the 429th regiment, who is the senior officer in Mozdok's military garrison, and the head of the military hospital from their duties for failing to comply with the orders," the minister said.
Sergei Ivanov said that joint "working investigation" was being carried out together with the prosecutor's office."This work is being headed by the district's commander, and we are determining the specific fault of specific servicemen who either had failed to carry out orders or had reported them as having been carried out whilst in fact this was not so," the defence minister said.
Ivanov said that investigators had established the type of the explosive device used in the terror attack in Mozdok. According to his information, the terrorist had used ammonium nitrate to blow up the hospital. He said also that the person to whom the KAMAZ truck loaded with explosives had belonged was tracked down, but refused to elaborate citing the interests of investigation.
Meanwhile, in Moscow Vladimir Putin held an emergency meeting with the head of the Federal Security Service Nikolai Patrushev and the country’s top prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov to discuss the consequences and the investigation into the Mozdok blast. The president said he was taking investigation under personal control.
Putin denounced the attack as “yet another confirmation of the inhuman, heartless nature of the bandits trying to destabilise the situation in the North Caucasus…. Their bloody evil deeds will not stop the process of a political settlement and the resumption of normal life."
On Sunday, deputy prosecutor general Sergei Fridinsky reported that two suspects were detained in wake of Friday hospital bombing. "There are now two suspects in bombing case. Efforts to track down the rest of those standing behind the terrorist attack continue," Fridinsky said.
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