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A Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer was killed while trying to defuse an explosive device in a main street of central Moscow early Thursday morning.
After three hours' efforts, a FSB sapper team destroyed the main part of the explosive device hidden in the handbag of a woman who attempted to stage an attack in downtown Moscow, Interfax reported Thursday.
But the device went off at 2:27 a.m. (Moscow time) and killed a specialist on the spot, who approached the bag to complete the operation, Itar-Tass news agency said.
The power of the explosive is estimated at over 400 grams of TNT, Interior Ministry spokesman Yuri Shuvalov said, according to Interfax.
The suspect woman has been detained by police in the Imbir restaurant located at central Moscow at around midnight.
Police headquarters received a telephone call at about 11:20 p.m. (Moscow time) Wednesday from the restaurant. The caller noted that a suspicious looking woman of North Caucasian appearance had entered the building, according to Interfax.
Police handcuffed the woman and took her out of the restaurant knowing that she was prepared to detonate the bombing device.
She has been shifted from police precinct to a FSB detention center for interrogation.
Restaurant guards who witnessed the incident said that the woman was accompanied by an unidentified man who escaped right after the woman's arrest.
Latest Itar-Tass report said that a 26-year-old man, a native of Grozny, has been arrested in the Central Administrative District of Moscow, suspected as the accomplice of the woman.
Investigators linked the terrorist act to the blasts last weekend in Moscow that killed 16 people including the two female suicide bombers, suggesting that the woman could be the third participant in the Tushino suicide attacks.
Latest information shows that the woman is identified as Zarima Muzhikhoyeva, a 22-year-old Ingush by origin who lives in Chechnya, whose husband was reportedly killed in the Chechen war, Interfax said.
The incident has been seen as "one more in a series of terrorist acts committed in Moscow recently," Moscow Prosecutor Mikhail Avdyukov was quoted as saying.
(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2003)
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