Investigators say DNA analysis needed to identify Vladikavkaz suicide

VLADIKAVKAZ, September 14 (Itar-Tass) -- A DNA analysis will be needed
to identify the suicide bomber who committed the terrorist act in
Vladikavkaz, the North Caucasian republic of North Ossetia, on September
9, a source in investigation agencies told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
Some 25 minutes before the blast, when stopped at a check point at the
republic's administrative border the man produced documents identifying
him as a Magomed Archakov. But when investigators arrived at the place of
his registered residence in North Ossetia's settlement of Maiskoye,
Archakov's relatives said the man had died of electric shock some eight
months before and was buried in Ingushetia, the source said, adding that
investigators would verify this information by means of DNA analysis.
Investigators say the security officers, who stopped the Volga car
with the suicide bomber at the entryway to the central market in
Vladikavkaz, might help identify the terrorist. The officers helped make a
detailed identikit of the bomber. When shown Archakov's photos, they said
the man "seemed to look like" the one who drove the Volga car, although
they said the terrorist was a young man not older than 23 or 24, while
Archakov was born in 1982, the source said.
Investigators are jet to find out how explosives had been delivered to
Vladikavkaz. According to one of the versions, the bomb was mounted into a
gas tank in the car's boot. "If the explosives were inside the gas tank,
they could not be seen when the car was searched, since there were no
specially trained dogs at the check point while the wiring might have been
placed under the car's back seats, the source noted.
According to another version, when the car crossed into North Ossetia
from Ingushetia it had no explosives that were planted already in North
Ossetia.
Meanwhile, local media said on Monday the republic's authorities had
promised to pay one million roubles for any information that might help
spot those who were involved in the terrorist attack.
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Monday law
enforcement agencies had defined the range of persons who may be involved
in the Vladikavkaz central market's explosion. "Investigative information
gives an idea who could have committed this crime," the interior minister
told journalists after a briefing in Pyatigorsk on issues related to the
organisation of interaction of law enforcement bodies of the North
Caucasian Federal District.
"Now our main task is to establish who is behind this terrorist act,"
Nurgaliyev stressed.
Meanwhile, North Ossetian authorities on Monday called on local youth
"not to give way to emotions and abstain from taking part in any mass
actions" at the republic's administrative borders. Vice speaker of the
republican parliament Azamat Khadikov and the republic's interior minister
Artur Akhmetkhanov on Monday arrived at the village of Kartsa to stop the
local young people who were set to "do away with the terrorist threat by
themselves."
"To yield to emotions now means to play into the hands of those who
plot terrorist acts, to help them achieve their goal, i.e. to make Ossetia
another hotbed of instability in Russia's North Caucasus, Khadikov said.
According to an Itar-Tass correspondent in Nazran, Ingushetia's
president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov urged residents of the village of Kartsa "to
be calm and not to respond to any provocative statements that might
deteriorate relations between the two North Caucasian republics." He said
he hoped the authorities of the neighbouring republic of North Ossetia
would do their utmost to prevent the loss of any innocent lives regardless
of the national identity.
The explosion at the entrance to the central market of Vladikavkaz
occurred on September 9 during peak hours - at 11:15 a.m. Moscow time. A
suicide bomber set off an explosive device in a car with the power
equivalent to 30-40 kilograms TNT.
The blast killed 17 people, over 190 wounded are at hospitals.

.No Russians onboard plane that crashed in Venezuela - embassy.

CARACAS, September 14 (Itar-Tass) -- No Russian citizens were onboard
a passenger plane that crash near Ciudad Guayana in south-eastern
Venezuela on Monday, the Russian embassy in Venezuela told Itar-Tass.
The ATR-42 plane of the state-owned air carrier Conviasa fell shortly
after taking off from the Manuel Carlos Piar Airport in Ciudad Guayana, in
the State of Bolivar. It crashed some 10 kilometers from the nearby city
of Puerto Ordaz, on the premises of the state-run Sidor steel corporation.
According to latest reports, the crash killed 14 peoples, of whom two
died in a hospital. Four persons are still reported missing. A total of 33
people were hospitalised with grave injuries and burns. In all, there were
47 passengers and four crewmembers onboard the plane.
-0-ras