Russian bombing suspect likely born in Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz State National Security Committee (GKNB) service said on Tuesday that the St. Petersburg metro blast suspect was likely carried out by a Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan.

NAN reports that 11 people were killed and 45 injured in a blast at the St Petersburg train carriage on Monday.

The explosion was a suspected suicide bombing by a perpetrator with ties to radical Islamists, Russia’s Interfax news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying late on Monday.

A spokesman for the Kyrgyz GKNB security service identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov, born in the city of Osh in 1995, but provided no other details.

Russia has been on high alert against attacks on its soil in reprisal for its military intervention in Syria, where Moscow’s forces have been supporting troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Islamic State group has repeatedly threatened revenge attacks.

If it is confirmed that the bomber was linked to radical Islamists, some sections of Russian society could see it as proof that Moscow’s decision to intervene in Syria has made civilians into targets.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic of six million, is a close political ally of Moscow and hosts a Russian military airbase.

Late on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the site of the blast, which made a huge hole in the side of a carriage and blew of the door, with metal wreckage strewn across the platform.

Passengers were seen hammering at the windows of one of the closed carriage after the train had pulled into the Sennaya Ploshad station at around 2:40 p.m.

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Russian TV said many had suffered lacerations from glass shards and metal, the force of the explosion amplified by the confines of the carriage and the tunnel.

St Petersburg television showed footage of the corpse of a bearded man they said was the perpetrator.

The footage bears resemblance of a man captured on closed circuit television who Russian media identified as a suspect.

Officials said they were treating the blast as an act of terrorism, but there was no official confirmation of any link to Islamist radicals.

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee revealed that an explosive device had been found at another station, hidden in a fire extinguisher, but had been defused.

Authorities closed all St. Petersburg metro stations.

The Moscow metro said it was taking unspecified additional security measures in case of an attack there.

The blast raised security fears beyond Russian frontiers. France, which has itself suffered a series of attacks, announced additional security measures in its capital, Paris.