As the death toll from the latest Moscow bombing rose into the 70s, President Yeltsin announced a nationwide security clampdown, including extra measures at nuclear installations, and called on Russians to be "calm but vigilant". In just 10 days, more than 220 people have died in bombings at apartment blocks in Moscow and the southern town of Buinaksk.
Two men were arrested in Moscow last night in connection with the explosions. Police reported that 50 sacks of explosives were found at an apartment building in the southern Borisovksie Prudy area and further finds of explosive fertiliser mixtures were made at Krasnogo Mayaka Street, in another southern sector of the city.
A leading expert on terrorism told The Irish Times yesterday that there were links between the Moscow bombings, the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI). Mr Yossef Bodansky, director of the Task Force on Terrorism for the US House of Representatives, said the Moscow bombs had been planned a year in advance.
The Islamist fighters in Russia's Caucasus region who are suspected almost universally of the bombings were, Mr Bodansky said, now under the control of the ISI and bin Laden was used by the ISI as a cover for its activities.
Since August 7th rebels based in Chechnya have been fighting to declare an Islamic republic in the southern Dagestani region of the Russian Federation. Russian forces bombed targets inside Chechnya, and it is generally believed that the Moscow apartment buildings were bombed as a reprisal.
Mr Alexander Zdanovich, a spokesman for the KGB's successor, the FSB, said the modus operandi for yesterday's bomb at Kashirskoye Chaussee had been similar to that at the southern suburb of Pechatniki, where at least 93 people died in an explosion three days earlier.
Terrorists, he said, had on both occasions rented accommodation on the ground floor of apartment blocks and, over a period of time, filled them with explosives before setting them off. In both cases the blasts took place in lower-income areas of the city. In both cases also the apartment buildings were almost totally destroyed.
In the drizzle at the scene of the explosion yesterday smoke rose from a hole in the ground where the building once stood. Men in the red-and-blue uniforms of the Emergencies Ministry moved black body bags out of the area.
The scene resembled that of an implosion rather than an explosion, with adjoining buildings suffering only minor damage and, incongruously, a 10-metre mosaic of Lenin remaining intact.
Scenes on Russian TV were harrowing . One man, still alive, was shown trapped under concrete slabs, his head badly gashed. Teams of rescuers manually lifted the heavy concrete amid cries of "careful, careful" before the man, wearing only his undershorts, was removed from the rubble.
Yesterday was to have been a day of mourning for the previous bombings and President Yeltsin, speaking slowly and deliberately, in a TV address told Russians: "We live in the context of a threatening spread of terrorism and therefore it is necessary to unite all the forces of society and the state to rebuff the internal enemy."
Russia's grief was boundless, the President said, but he called for restraint. "The main aim of the bandits is to intimidate people, to sow panic and fear. I am sure they will not live to see that. The best response to terrorists will be your vigilance and calm. Today it depends on each one of you how effective the struggle against evil will be. The response of the authorities to the challenge of the bandits will be adequate, tough, prompt and resolute."
Unfortunately one of the early responses has been the indiscriminate arrest of people of Caucasian origin who work in Moscow's food and vegetable markets.
