SOCHI, Russia — Russian security officials are hunting down three potential female suicide bombers, one of whom is believed to be in Sochi, where the Winter Olympics begin next month.
Police leaflets seen by an Associated Press reporter at a central Sochi hotel Tuesday contain warnings about three potential suicide bombers, who may follow in the footsteps of the so-called “black widows” blamed for previous suicide attacks in the country. A police letter said one potential bomber, Ruzanna Ibragimova, a 22-year-old widow of an Islamic militant, was at large in Sochi.
For more than a decade, women have committed many of Russia’s worst terror attacks, downing airliners, blowing up subway cars and killing people going to a rock concert.
A U.S. congressman who was in Sochi to assess the situation said he was impressed by the work of Russian security forces but troubled that potential suicide bombers had gotten into the city, despite all of the extraordinary security measures.
“We know some of them got through the perimeter,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. “She’s for real. What we don’t know is how many more black widows are out there.”
The term “black widow” refers to the belief that these women took the desperate step of becoming suicide bombers in order to avenge husbands or male relatives killed in Russia’s long fight against Islamic militants in the Caucasus region.
One of the earliest attacks to draw attention to female terrorists was the 2002 mass hostage-taking at a Moscow theater by Chechen militants — 19 of the 41 attackers were women. The crisis ended with Russian forces pumping narcotic gas into the theater, killing all the attackers and at least 118 of the approximately 850 hostages.
In 2003, two women blew themselves up at the entrance gate to a Moscow outdoor rock concert, killing 14 people.
The southern city of Volgograd was rocked by two suicide bombings in late December, which killed 34 and injured scores more.
Police material distributed included pictures of two other women in veils: 26-year-old Zaira Aliyeva and 34-year-old Dzhannet Tsakhayeva. It said they had been trained “to perpetrate acts of terrorism.”
