Bombing in Stavropol

On 26 May 2010, seven people were killed and over 40 wounded in a bomb blast in Stavropol. A bomb exploded outside a theatre just before the start of a Chechen dance show, investigators said.

The ethnically Russian Stavropol region, which borders the violence-racked Muslim republics of the North Caucasus, has been hit by Islamist attacks in the past, but not in recent years.

The prosecutor's office statement said the bomb, which contained explosives equivalent to 200-250 grammes of TNT, exploded 15 minutes before the start of a concert by a celebrated Vainakh dance troop from Chechnya. The dance troop is closely associated with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has posed for photographs with the dancers.

"About 15-20 minutes before the start of the concert we heard an explosion. We saw the blast had practically flung aside the crowd that had gathered outside...about 100-150 people," Rustam, an eyewitness, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Dmitry Medvedev last year ordered that Stavropol Region be included in a new North Caucasus Federal District along with mainly-Muslim Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia in a bid to tackle growing violence.

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