Dozens Killed in Twin Russian Metro Bombings

The first attack occurred at Lubyanka station in the middle of the city and just below the Russia's Federal Security Service (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB). The second attack took place southwest of the city center at Park Kultury station.

Despite the death toll, the actual stations sustained very little damage and both reopened later in the day. With 7 million riders a day, Moscow has the second busiest underground system in the world after Tokyo.

Tuesday was declared a national day of mourning in Russia with flags flying at half mast all over Moscow.

Bombers believed to be female

	Russian Federal Security Service Chief Alexander Bortnikov, shown here with Russian President Medvedev (left), said the suicide bombers are believed to be women from the North Caucuses region.

Though no group has yet claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks, Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov noted that the attackers were believed to be women from the North Caucasus -- the region that borders Europe and Asia.

"Fragments of the bodies of two female suicide bombers were found earlier at the scene of the incident and examinations show that these individuals came from the North Caucasus region," Bortnikov said.

Early reports pointing to body parts claim the women were wearing explosive belts with chipped iron and screws for shrapnel to make the explosions more deadly.

This is the first attack in the capital city in six years when 40 people were killed outside a subway station.

Chechen connection?

	The North Caucuses is a multiethnic region that has clashed with Russia in a battle for independence.

Experts have speculated that these attacks are the work of Islamic extremists in the area of the North Caucasus in retaliation for recent raids by Russian security forces there.

The North Caucasus is a mountainous, multiethnic region that includes the Russian states of Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Chechnya over the past 15 years, where rebel forces have battled for independence in two wars. And Russian officials have continued to struggle with Islamic extremists from the region.

Rebel leader Doku Umarov warned in a video on the Internet in February that "The war is coming to their cities."

"If Russians think the war only happens on television, somewhere far away in the Caucasus, where it can't reach them, then God willing, we plan to show them that the war will return to their homes," Umarov said.

Kremlin response

	Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said his government is seeking a new approach to addressing terrorism.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that the initiators of the twin attacks should be scraped "from the bottom of the sewers."

He told a meeting of transport officials a day after the bombings that surveillance cameras would not be able to prevent attacks but could identify their organizers, Reuters reported.

President Dmitry Medvedev has said that his government might attempt to overhaul current anti-terrorism procedures and that the government must address the root causes of the insurgency.

"People want a normal human life no matter where they live -- in central Russia, the Caucasus or somewhere else," he said. "It's up to federal authorities and the authorities in the Caucasus region to create these conditions."

The coordinated bombings come after government officials had claimed that they had stamped out insurgents in the Caucasus.

"We have been able to break the spine of terrorism," Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin's governor in Chechnya, declared before the attacks.

President Medvedev's new representative to the area had even sent the president a multi-billion dollar effort to revamp the North Caucasus into a tourist destination.