NAZRAN, Russia: A suicide bomber rammed a truck into a police station in the Russian region of Ingushetia on Monday, killing at least 20 police in the worst attack to ravage the poor North Caucasus republic in years.
The blast, which wounded more than 130 others, undermined Kremlin claims that its efforts to bring calm and prosperity to the impoverished patchwork of ethnic groups, clans and religions were succeeding.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which left the two-story building smoldering with a crater in the compound’s courtyard, where the attacker detonated the bomb.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired Ingushetia’s top police officer and, in unusually harsh comments, said police forces were as much to blame as the attackers themselves. “This terrorist attack could have been prevented,” he said.
Ingushetia — more than any other North Caucasus region — has been reeling from violence in recent months, including a suicide bombing that badly wounded the Kremlin-appointed leader, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.
Yevkurov blamed militants who have battled security forces in the forests along the mountainous border with Chechnya. “It was an attempt to destabilize the situation and sow panic,” he said in a statement issued by his spokesman.
Investigators said the attacker crashed his truck through the gates of city police headquarters in Nazran, Ingushetia’s main city, as officers were lining up for their morning inspection. Police fired shots at the truck, but failed to stop it.
