Bomb Collapses Soldiers’ Housing Complex

Sun., Nov. 17, 1996

Compiled From Wire Services

A building housing Russian soldiers and their families in a republic bordering Chechnya collapsed Saturday in a powerful bomb blast, killing as many as 13 people.

Rescue workers heard cries for help coming from under the debris of the nine-story building. Eleven people were missing and were feared trapped.

Officials said the explosion was likely caused by one or more bombs planted in the basement of the building in Kaspyisk, a town in Dagestan, a southern Russian republic neighboring Chechnya.

Up to 130 people, most of them Russian border guard officers and their families, were living in the apartment complex. The blast destroyed 41 of the 75 apartments, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Russian national security chief Ivan Rybkin blamed the blast on forces opposed to peace agreements in separatist Chechnya.

The Chechen separatist leadership condemned the blast and blamed it on a “third force seeking to wreck the peace process,” Chechen official Movladi Udugov told ITAR-Tass.

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Bomb Collapses Soldiers’ Housing Complex

Jesse Tinsley

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