Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said an explosion that tore through a Saint Petersburg supermarket, wounding 13 people, was an act of terror, as footage of the suspected bomber spread on the internet.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a meeting with military officers in the Kremlin, Putin ordered the nation\u2019s security services to \u201cact decisively\u201d and \u201cliquidate bandits on the spot\u201d if armed militants put up resistance.<\/p>\n
His spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters later that the Russian leader was referring to all those \u201cwho harbour plans to carry out acts of terror in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday evening, a homemade bomb placed in a locker at the supermarket in northwestern Saint Petersburg, Russia\u2019s second city and Putin\u2019s hometown, exploded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you know, an act of terror took place in Saint Petersburg yesterday,\u201d Putin said at a ceremony to award officers who took part in the Syria campaign.<\/p>\n
Those wounded in the attack included a 35-year-old pregnant woman.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s 2015 decision to intervene in Syria militarily on the side of Bashar al-Assad has made Russia a priority target for the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n
Anna Mityanina, vice governor of Saint Petersburg, said on Twitter that six people remain in hospital care.<\/p>\n
The bomb came after the FSB security service said earlier this month it had prevented a terror attack on a key Orthodox cathedral in Saint Petersburg with the help of America\u2019s CIA, which led Putin to thank US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The explosion occurred at around 1845 local time as people geared up to celebrate the New Year — the country\u2019s biggest holiday — followed by Russian Orthodox Christmas, which falls on January 7.<\/p>\n
The investigation is being overseen by Russia\u2019s National Anti-Terror Committee even though authorities initially opened a probe into attempted murder.<\/p>\n
The committee said the explosion went off after \u201ca criminal placed an unidentified explosive device in a storage locker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Footage posted online by local media showed a man — who did not appear Slavic and wore a hooded jacket — enter the supermarket with a backpack and leave without it a short time afterwards.<\/p>\n
Saint Petersburg is home to tens of thousands of migrants many of whom come from majority-Muslim Central Asia.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s spokesman Peskov rejected concerns that Saint Petersburg had become especially vulnerable in the face of terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrorism presents a danger to any populated locality in the world,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
He added that Putin — widely expected to extend his Kremlin term to 2024 in a March presidential election — had every intention to \u201ccontinue consistent and task-oriented work to fight terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April, a suicide bombing killed 15 people and wounded dozens on the Saint Petersburg metro.<\/p>\n
That bombing was claimed by a group linked to Al-Qaeda which said it was a message to countries engaged in war with Muslims, a veiled reference to Russia\u2019s military campaign in Syria.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month the FSB said it had arrested several members of the Islamic State group who had planned to blow up the Kazan Cathedral, one of Saint Petersburg\u2019s most famous landmarks, among other busy places.<\/p>\n
Authorities have confiscated a large number of explosives used to make homemade bombs, automatic rifles, munitions and extremist literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said an explosion that tore through a Saint Petersburg supermarket, wounding 13 people, was an act of terror, as footage of the suspected bomber spread on the internet. Speaking at a meeting with military officers in the Kremlin, Putin ordered the nation\u2019s security services to \u201cact decisively\u201d and \u201cliquidate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16407,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405\/revisions\/16407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}