One can just toss this severe remark out there into the ether, just as President Medvedev did when he said: «We will certainly do everything in order to catch these freaks, these villains,» who the day before carried out suicide bombings in Vladikavkaz. But as the Russian people can see, between these words and the Kremlin’s security guarantees lays a deep precipice.

This precipice is filling up with the corpses of the killed, with the blood, pain, and anger of the injured, and everyone else who one way or another has come into contact with the horror of this ruin.

There is neither security, nor those democratic freedoms that were taken away from the people under grandiloquent declarations about liquidating terrorism.

The terrorists who have been «rubbed out while on the john» (to use a V. Putin statement) still remain, as well as the fear that they can strike a blow at any place and at any time.

And so, more than anything, well-known publicist Larissa Latynina is worried that these two explosions in Buynaksk (on September 5th on the Russian army military base) and in Vladikavkaz, took place on the anniversaries of the September 1999 blasts. The first blast during that terrible year occurred at the same place in the same market in Vladikavkaz on March 19th, 1999, when 53 persons were killed.

The second explosion thundered out on September 4, 1999, when they blew up the bachelor officer's quarters of the 136th division, the same unit that was just attacked.

On the radio program 'Echo of Moscow' Latynina expressed fear that these «fundamentalist festivals» might continue in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the number of victims of the September 9th terror act in Vladikavkaz has risen to 17 local residents. The suicide bomber also died.

158 people were injured or received various traumas and mutilations.

'Interfax' counted 107 wounded undergoing treatment in hospitals in North Osetia, 4 of which are in extremely serious condition, and 22 in serious condition.

'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' reported that after the blast the city was seized by panic when the republic's ministry of education received an anonymous telephone call that a school in Vladikavkaz would be blown up.

In connection with this all schools and kindergartens were closed.

Yesterday they identified the owner of the vehicle that was blown up in Vladikavkaz. He reported to police investigators that the sold it the day before to an unknown person.

Approximately a half-hour before the blast the driver of the Volga sedan was stopped at a checkpoint on the Ingush border, and his documents examined.

Attention was riveted to the Volga because of the tense relations between the republics, both of which consider the suburban area around Vladikavkaz their own.

The Ingush president, Yunus-Beck Evkurov expressed condolences to the head of North Osetia, Taymuraz Mamsurov, and stated that «the bandits who did this act of terror on a holiday sacred to every Muslim, Uraza-Bairam, were trying to destabilize the situation».

Coordinating the work of law-enforcement agencies in the investigation of the act of terror will be Alexander Bastrykin, head of Procurator's investigation committee. He arrived in Vladikavkaz yesterday.

The previous large terror act in Vladikavkaz happened on November 6, 2008. A taxi van was detonated not far from the entrance of the central market, and 12 persons were killed and more than 40 injured.

Meanwhile, the national anti-terrorist committee issued a warning about the possibility of repeat explosions in Vladikavkaz, according to GZT.ru.

The operational headquarters in North Osetia is coordinating the activities of rapid reaction forces, security services, and law-enforcement agencies in order to prevent possible repeated explosions.

A complex of administrative-governmental and operational-pursuit organizations has been set up.

If the statements by the owner of the blown up Volga are accurate, continued 'Kommersant.ru', then in less than twenty-four hours they were able to convert the vehicle's gas tank into a bomb.

According to preliminary reports by the explosives technicians, after dismantling the gas tank, the terrorists replaced it with another, which they filled with an explosive based on ammonium nitrate and also with shrapnel consisting of fasteners and ball bearings.

According to experts, these elements caused only moderate injuries, while those killed were hit by pieces of the vehicle that was carrying the bomb.

It is still to be determined by experts exactly who set off the bomb, whether it was directly by the terrorist himself behind the wheel, or remotely by an accomplice who was observing the Volga sedan from a distance.

So far it is known that the improvised explosive device had an electric detonator.

According to publications, suspicion for the terror act fell on gunmen from the so-called «Ekazhevo Jammat», one of the largest bands in the North Caucasus. It has a site in the Internet.

According to one version, the blast might be to avenge a special operation carried out in Ekazhevo in early March of this year. Back then seven rebel fighters were killed, including the four brothers Kartoev, as well as the ideological head of the fighters, a specialist in preparing suicide bombers, Alexander Tixomirov (AKA Sayeed Buryatsky).

Another three of the Kartoev brothers remain alive: Takhan, Tatarkhan, and Beslan, as well as their neighbor, Yakub Aushev. They were arrested for undermining the tracks of the Neva Express last year.

FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, who arrived by plane in Vladikavkaz, reported that three men have already been detained in connection with this latest act of terror.

The leader of the North Caucasian rebel fighters, Dok Umarov, claimed responsibility for act of terror. Yesterday on the website kavkazcenter.org in a video he promised to continue conducting «special operations» on Russian territory.

Umarov, noted Newsru.com, tries to take to credit for practically every terror act on Russian territory; investigators, however, are skeptical about his statements.

Premier Putin, during a meeting with Ravile Gaynutdin, chairman of the Russian Mufti Union, stated that the act of terror in Vladikavkaz was directed at sowing hostility among the citizens of Russia.

Obviously, he meant between Osetian and Ingush.

«We do not have the right to allow this,» he proclaimed, after noting that he greatly counts on the support of the Russian Moslem population in the fight against extremism.

Medvedev, however, made remarks against «these freaks».

The president used the same in a statement in March of this year, when he spoke after the terror acts in the Moscow metro.

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