Female suicide bombers kill 38 in Moscow rush hour subway explosions UPDATED

The text of the CNN article does not mention Islamists, but Matthew Chance, their senior international correspondent in Moscow, does:

Female suicide bombers blamed in Moscow subway attacks

Russian investigators combing two subway stations attacked by female suicide bombers think Chechen rebels may have been behind the rush-hour strike that killed dozens of people.

“Our preliminary assessment is that this act of terror was committed by a terrorist group from the North Caucasus region,” said Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service, in reference to the investigation at one of the blast sites.

“We consider this the most likely scenario, based on investigations conducted at the site of the blast,” Bortnikov said. “Fragments of the suicide bombers’ body found at the blast, according to preliminary findings, indicate that the bombers were from the North Caucasus region.”

Two female suicide bombers set off explosions that rocked the two subway stations in central Moscow during rush hour Monday morning, killing at least 38 people and wounded more than 60 others, officials said.

The BBC mentions Islamists, in couched terms so no one gets offended,

The BBC’s Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.

The NYT is oblique, too:

Officials said they suspected that the attack there was intended as a message to the security services, which have helped lead the crackdown on Islamic extremism in Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus region in southern Russia.

Associated Press plays the same word games,

Russian police have killed several Islamic militant leaders in the North Caucasus recently, including one last week in the Kabardino-Balkariya region. The killing of Anzor Astemirov was mourned by contributors to two al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites.

The killings have raised fears of retaliatory strikes by the militants.

MSNBC waits for the seventeenth paragraph to mention “Islalmist”

The Kremlin had declared victory in their battle with Chechen separatists who fought two wars with Moscow; but violence has intensified in the neighboring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, where Islamist militancy overlaps with clan rivalries and criminal rings.

Of course no one dares use the word terrorist.

Wouldn’t want to offend anyone, would they?

UPDATE
Bill Roggio has more on the “Black Widow”

The FSB believes the attacks were carried out by the ‘Black Widows,’ members of the Caucasus Emirate’s female suicide bomber cadre. The chief of the FSB said the heads of two women have been recovered at the blast sites. The Black Widows are typically wives or daughters of family members killed during the wars against the Russians in Chechnya.

The Black Widows have targeted Russian civilians and security personnel in multiple attacks, including: the attack on the Nord-Ost Moscow theater in 2003 (129 killed); an assassination attempt against Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov (14 killed); a suicide attack on a train in Southern Russia (46 killed); a dual suicide attack at a rock concert at Tushino Airfield in Moscow (16 killed); the destruction of two Russian airliners in 2004 (more than 90 killed); and the attack on a school in Beslan in North Ossetia (334 killed).

The Black Widows are a unit within the members of the Riyad-us-Saliheen, or Garden of Paradise, martyr brigade.

“Riyad [the Riyad-us-Saliheen martyr brigade] is believed to be descended from two other Chechen terrorist organizations led by [former Chechen terrorist leader Shamil] Basayev, the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) and the International Islamic Brigade (IIB),” according to the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism datatbase. “It has even been suggested that Riyad is simply the result of the marriage of these two groups.”