this edition of crossfire we excelled in who disappointed us what stories captured our attention because of hope or do you despair. breaking news on our t.v. investigators say the explosive devices in both of the blasts in volgograd right ventricle and both were suicide bombings with two terror attacks happening within twenty four hours of one another killing up to twenty three people or thirty two people. one pm in moscow i match reza continuing today's breaking news coverage russian president vladimir putin has ordered security to be tightened across russia after the southern city of volgograd was struck by two explosions in

a space of less than twenty four hours a latest blast ripping through a trolley bus during the monday morning rush hour in one vesta gaiters now suspect was a suicide attack both bombings have cleaned up to thirty two lives or he's margaret howell has been covering the events throughout the day in volgograd margaret are we any closer to getting more details about what happened today well some new details have emerged regarding the bombing this morning long a lot for enforcement officials now believe that the bomber there was a suicide bomber that he is male they believe that they may have found his body they are in the process of identifying it now now as you mentioned the two explosive devices identical this one in particular having roughly four k. g.'s of t.n.t. as opposed to the one before it with ten. about a smaller bomb in size but the impact still devastating the death toll now has.

do you have an eyewitness account of what happened this morning take a listen. to. i was going home from work i was giving a driver to a woman a coworker of mine. when i was turning around i heard a blast i was already in a queue of vehicles an ass and other driver what's happening there was no panic but there were screams a bit i drew up to save somebody some children but i was told that the only wounded guy there was the driver his name was seriously i drove him to a hospital simbi told me that the conductor who sold tickets on the bus. the trolley bus was not full of people i saw six dead bodies myself at the time of the explosion i was at home my house is located some fifty meters away from the bus stop the explosion was very loud my entire family woke up and springing up

we ran outside we saw a lot of bodies lying around us we saw the remains of clothes there was a very strong smell of something burning and of t.n.t. a number of ambulances and police vehicles showed up almost immediately. also the. people from the governor showed up and started investigation we saw a lot of people lying on the sidewalk i don't know how many of them were alive or dead. well matt as you heard that eyewitness accounts of the bodies littering the sidewalk law enforcement official actually arrived on the scene within minutes and started collecting those bodies the bus was torn to shreds when this bomb exploded and the irony that this would happen here because i'm looking at trees they're beautiful a crystallised it's such

a picture of a setting and how something so heinous happened on the ground here it's contradicting the very setting of but nonetheless this did occur this morning and it does appear that fifteen are now dead twenty eight endured as of now one of them being a one year old baby and something so heinous to happen to people in this market particularly children is some undescribable. and this at a time when the city is still reeling from sunday's terror attacks at the train station there in volgograd here tell us if there are any new details or updates for about. i can well as you mentioned the death toll between these two attacks stands at thirty two now yesterday we did report that fifteen had died from that attack plus the suicide bomber which had been identified as male the male finger found in the pen of that grenade so law enforcement officials do suspect that if it was not

a black widow suicide bomber but in fact a male suicide bomber now because of that that particular blast bringing the death toll from close to thirty two and we covered this extensively on the ground yesterday take a listen to that report. the busy train station it was rocked by the blast of a terrorist bomb on sunday afternoon shards of metal ripped through an area around a security checkpoint as passengers waited for their luggage to be inspected officials say the bomb was equivalent to at least ten kilos of t.n.t. and only the security barrier prevented this scene of devastation from becoming much worse but it's impossible to calculate the toll something like this has on its victims many are still reeling. from that i bent down to collect my documents when i saw a flash of light and there was a blast i was thrown back by the explosion when i came to my senses

a man who was carrying me only outside was i able to get a breath of air and sought to understand what was happening. my son father and niece were inside the train station when the last one of their own in intensive care and now they're badly injured they were headed for a train to moscow but never made it a second bomb was later discovered it had failed to detonate investigators are now looking into the identity of the person or persons who carried this out it's now suspected the attacker was male despite earlier reports of a so-called black widow suicide bomber this is the second time. and just a few months that the southern russian city has been the target of extremist october suicide blast on a passenger bus which killed six and over thirty others is still raw and the memories of people here governments around the world are beginning to realize that finding international terror threats can only be done only as both organized cells

and lone terrorist continue to slip through law enforcement's next we're talking about the hardest movement which is linked to al qaida that is. not just in russia but also in other countries including in syria as we know now now the direct motive is not different from the previous attacks on moscow on other locations inside russia and i would say it is not so different from attacks that has happened around the world okada c.b.s. against democracies against countries that they want to consider as enemies with a tragedy like this one that hit volgograd just days ahead of the new year's celebrations it's no surprise authorities thought it more appropriate to cancel the festivities and to clear the first three days of twenty point as a period of mourning in volgograd margaret how will he. argues or in a delusion go it is standing by near the kremlin with more on the view from the russian administration give us the latest arena well at this point we have

a russian president who's met with the heads of security. in the country he's met with the minister of the interior and with the head of the federal security service they have been briefed him on the situation in the volgograd region as well as on the situation in the nearby southern district says southern regions and the republic where and to terrorism operations have been going on just very recently. put in requested the head of the federal security service the f.s.b. head to volgograd to oversee the situation there keep track of what's happening. also there's been a meeting with the. there was a meeting of the state security council and. with the head of the national into terrorism community and the result of that meeting was the heightened state of security. terrorism alerts throughout the entire country so the whole of russian federation is now on alert for possible

terror attacks now of course there's been a lot of talk about the possible. about those who have lost their loved ones in these horrific attacks they will be awarded roughly what they will be awarded one million rubles that's about thirty thousand dollars those who have been injured in the terror attacks will also receive monetary compensation and of course there is the ministry of emergencies which has been working nonstop ever since the news of the first terror attack broke and this is what the minister of the emergencies has to say about their work. we are putting our forces on high alert in the entire region also as president putin ordered every family that suffered from these attacks will be compensated we're also establishing constant communication with volgograd and will be transporting all the injured to moscow st petersburg and other regions. and now

of course the. first three days off the new here are going to be days of mourning for the volga guard region and by the looks of it really right now it doesn't look like there's going to be a very happy new year for the entire country of course but everybody taking very close to what's happening in volgograd. all right. life for us in central moscow thanks very much for that update our very attire from russia's strategic institute of strategic research says that all three of the attacks that happened in volgograd the last few months are interconnected. this is the seared explosion in a short time starting from a tuber and they are definitely related even though no leaders of terrorists ever assume that responsibility so far we know preliminary information about the people who pulled off yesterday's attack

but it definitely those terrorist attacks are interrelated and. aimed at destabilizing not only north caucasus but also joining it territories areas that are close to the zone of instability is the purpose is to destabilize the whole of southern russia especially in the run up of the winter olympics in sochi which will be the major event in the world of sports the sponsors which also this serious attack pursued the goal of showing to their own sponsors their own investors in turn to shoot to them that terrorism does bear fruit that it does bear profit and that it does have a potential in southern russia we asked dr urine party from the international institute for counter-terrorism what could be done to over such tragedies in the future. well it's not just blacks are not always not always easy to prevent it and

there's you know that takes place in other parts of the world just the mention the fact that the last several months ago in boston in america again by people regionally came from just the up for this it up to be all such a caucus to be prevented must be a very good intelligence i think that it just could be with the hands of the company concerned or the services that they have ahead of relation between countries because sometimes and it's not just being planned the month placed at the expense of the different part of the world completely has been international reaction to the tragic events of the last two days from senior international officials the president of the european council herman van rompuy said i condemn in the strongest terms the heinous terrorist attack in volgograd this morning and i send my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and my solidarity to the government and people of russia meanwhile nato secretary general anders rasmussen said there can be no justification for such barbarous attacks nato and

russia stand together in the fight against terrorism including by working together on technology to prevent attacks on public transport systems let's talk to world affairs journalist and broadcaster neil clark for some more insight on this so we've heard a lot of action or a lot of reaction from the international community what kind of action do you think there may be coming from this as well well quite we need action we don't use the words nicely the nato chief has condemned the attack and yesterday's attack not what are we going to do in concrete because it is the western approach to terrorism has been very consistent because we are told on the one hand the west implacably opposed to radical islamic terrorism and that it's the biggest schooled humanity etc and yet on the other hand we have the west lining up radical islamic terrorists in syria you know back on the same side as al qaeda trying to topple eight secular government i mean this is a serial killer if you actually flew an al-qaeda attempt on the u.s. embassy. can i ask in two thousand and six and what did the u.s.

doing response when they tried to topple the syrian government so there is an inconsistency here and i think that unless the west actually stops it's inconsistent approach and actually does fight terrorism across the work and working with russia closely i think that these problems will only can see if there is the danger that when terrorism occurs in russia it's kind of dismissed or it's kind of regarded as not really the same thing and have been some shocking articles actually in the western media went similar terrorist attacks have occurred in russia was blaming the rational for it is for them like when there was the moscow bombing in twenty eleven you had article remember one article saying well really the russians what was on on themselves why their policy towards chechnya and you would write articles about bombings in london or new york so i think there's double standards here we've got to take these terrible terrorist attacks in russia very serious as seriously as we take these attacks in new york or in london and until that happens until the west does take this seriously i'm afraid that we're not going to get the

action needed internationally to stop these attacks taking place in the future so what kind of international archon are you talking about well i think the west got to change its policy towards russia because i think as a state there's a war being waged against russia on two fronts really there's a kind of soft war a propaganda war which the orchestra. and what i call the faint laughter really in western countries which is to try to demonize russia to smear russia using any reason whether it's pussy riot whether it's a right school i apologize i apologize for jumping in here but i want you to i would like you to specifically address how the both sides can work together in addressing the terror threat yet when i think you have both sides well it west has got to i think what change its relationship with saudi arabia which is a major sponsor of a lot of these radical islamic groups around the world west has got to realize its foreign policy the trouble is if you look at syria for example the west is actually on the same side as a terrorist because it's because of its relationships with in large between saudi arabia and israel who both want that regime in syria to be removed so i think we need a shift in the western capitals i think we need to get to work closer with russia

because when there is closer cooperation we saw that with the boston bombings didn't we when we had the russian warnings about the south sorry no problems were ignored by the americans because then again there was this tendency so it's russian warnings taken with a pinch of salt and so unless the west does work cooperate more seriously with russia as equal partners in this battle against the radical terrorist groups you know that's the problem that met that's the major shift that's got to happen and it's ok to have nato she's coming out today quite rightly to get this attack but i'm less there is this approach to russia more respectful approach instead of this on the one hand sam going to work russian the other hand carrying out this cold war propaganda against russia to be sure this will happen well let's take a look at volgograd specifically and now we have two attacks in space of less than twenty four hours is now saying that it seems as though mail suicide bombers carried out both of these attacks so what kind of message do you think attackers

are trying to send by doing that in that city now. well they're quite clearly trying to him again to scam people who go about daily business this you know bombing crowd buses on monday morning people going to the bombing stations about terrorism they're terrorists trying to terrorize people and of course this is i think linked again to this. to the olympics coming up it's trying to scare people from going to the olympics trying to we've had this you know on the one hand we got neo cons in the west tend to be good don't go to the russians oppressive laws on this or that the other you know how we got the terrorists kind of bombed the way we're going to be into this is psychological warfare going on here and it's about saying to russian people in this particular you know south of russia look we can get you wherever you go on the bus or train station and trying to intimidate people and the early reports to this is of course international action who knows where these people who who carried out these attacks who knows who funds them it could be

international we don't know it requires an international response because all many conscionable threatened by this and what can you do you can't put metal detectors on detect on buses can you actually in practical so i think that. each eight and massive international response are a journalist and broadcaster neil clark thanks for your time thanks matt or the city of volgograd in southern russia as we've been saying just to recap city's been struck by two suicide bombings within the space of the last twenty four hours latest happening on a trolley bus as it approached the market during morning rush hour up to fifteen people confirmed dead up to twenty eight others wounded including a one year old child three people said to be in critical condition investigators say the attack was carried out by a male suicide bomber and the event was probably connected to sunday's train station bombing that killed at least sixteen people and left forty five others wounded in the city stay with us here on r.t. for the latest updates on the volgograd attacks after this short break.

this is a. motion see. that no one is with again they deserve answers from. politics.

twenty minutes past the hour now the city of volgograd in southern russia hit by two suicide bombings in the space of just twenty four hours latest happening on a trolley bus as it approached the market during the morning rush hour up to fifteen people confirmed dead twenty eight wounded including a one year old child three people said to be critically wounded investigators say the attack carried out by a male suicide bomber the event probably connected to sunday's train station bombing that killed at least sixteen people and wounded forty five others and eye witness to the blast on monday morning told us what she saw. but if you look at the

time of the explosion i was asleep i woke up because of the enormous blast i heard glass shattering in the lower two stories of the building i looked out of the window it was still dark and i saw a bus that was wrecked by a blast and people were running away from it screaming some of the moon that a lot of the people were running around the street panicking it was exactly rush hour everybody was going to work or school it's also a busy spot it's located next to a market there's always a lot of traffic there lots of people were waiting for buses at the stop where the explosion took place within a minute of the explosion a police car a fire engine and an ambulance pulled up at the site all the streets around were closed nobody could approach the area people got evacuated away police started looking for any bombs planted nearby i saw dead bodies lying on the ground near the trolley bus and i saw bodies being carried away. un secretary general has called

for those responsible for the tragedy in volgograd to be brought to justice the terrorism also unanimously condemned by the un security council and you are activist don de bar things that it's up to the international community to join forces against the global terror threat people on the ground who did this perhaps may be you know anonymous players just individuals who are incited one way or another but you do not move weaponized explosives into a major city without the aid of very powerful forces state actors usually and so i think that the focus should be for the entire international community to take a look already at who are the state actors that are enabling these things and to make them the international pariah is that they should be allowed to impose criminal sanctions on those responsible within those governments. we spoke from we heard from gordon hahn a senior associate at the center for international strategy who told me that trust

between governments is essential to combat threats of terrorism. very difficult to guard against long wills or even. organized. so it's like lots of very difficult indeed unless the intelligence or police or the nation before hand then it's up to local citizens to be vigilant generally speaking before any country any city. is very difficult to prevent these kinds of attacks it's very possible that the attacks are more driven by the upcoming holiday sometimes it is that the examination of the timing of the attacks isn't simply the suicide bomber and or planners are ready to go and they don't want to wait in the event that they might be uncovered or that the suicide bomber might act out and be talking about the calculations of the handlers so it's hard to tell generally speaking these

things are planned you know a couple of months in advance against they made this may have been something they want to hold off on to be able to do just on the eve of the olympics to scare people off from attending but circumstances force them to act earlier what do you think could be done on an international level to help combat global terror like this well the most obvious thing is we have to have good international cooperation between all countries and we have to be. here in the united states. sometimes we actually want to believe what the russians say about the nature of terrorism in the north caucuses. does it then being a states not to think that iraq is a seriously about sort of the north caucasus and that's one of the things i think that led to this lone wolf style attack in boston although as you remember when i have the elders and i rather someone attempted to join up with the dogs that the sauce is emerson when he travels to the region in two thousand and twelve so again

cooperation. certain terms of relations between western countries and russian countries a little bit more trust when it comes to the issue of their. the city of volgograd in southern russia hit by two suicide bombings within the space of twenty four hours the latest happening on a trolley bus as it approached a market during morning rush hour up to fifteen people confirmed dead up to twenty eight others wounded including the one year old child three of them said to be critically ill investigators say the attack carried out by a male suicide bomber and the event probably connected to sunday's train station bombing that killed at least sixteen and wounded forty five others here's what another eyewitness told us at the site of the tragedy. at the moment the whole place has been cordoned off i'm standing two hundred meters away from the site of the blast from a former you see people who look like bomb experts there are plenty of ambulances here traffic is at a standstill which is very unusual for volgograd there are also many civilian

people here many are calling on their cell phones others crying they're trying to find out if their relatives were on the bus that blew up what's horrible is that the incident happened in the morning close to the market as people came to buy things for the new year's holiday it's also now tough to get so phone connections many people are trying to figure out what to do next. artie's are in evolution joining us now with the latest from the kremlin what's the view from russia's administration at this point well of course they're extremely concerned with the situation as off monday morning and has been meeting with the heads of the essentially all of security organizations and committees that we have in the country he was debriefed by the minister of the interior as well as by the head of the federal security service we have talked about the situation in of all grad region and also in the nearby saw there in regions where terrorism has been

sporadically breaking out from time to time and where antiterrorism operations have been carried out very very recently the result of this was the order from the russian president for the head of the federal security service to go to volgograd to oversee the situation personally also there has been a meeting with the. with the head of the national and to terrorism committee and coming out of that it's been advised that the level of security will be raised throughout the entire country now when it comes to helping those who have lost their loved ones in the core of this terror attacks it's been established that they will receive compensation in the form of one million. rubles that's about thirty thousand dollars those who have been injured in these attacks will also receive financial financial compensation it will be at a slightly lower ones now what when it comes to ministry of emergencies they have been working nonstop have brought about six or six people from volgograd to be

treated in hospitals and all of them are three people who have been a very critically injured also minister emergencies has established a centrally nonstop flying connection between moscow and volgograd to bring doctors medical. equipment and medication as needed on the ground in the volgograd region and they're trying to. they're trying to help out the situation in any way they can and of course that the morning the days of mourning in the volgograd region actually have been extended they begin today and will last until the third of january and when it comes to security measures they have also been heightened in moscow as well with an increased police presence on the streets and on public transportation all right arena thank you very much for that. more updates from the breaking news quickly developing story in volgograd as we get them stay

with us for all the updates your art. i was thinking somehow i had to come back because mom was waiting for me. i just knew that everything would be fine for some reason we were so confident because we were going to get married officially after he came back how could he not come back because the mere thought of it never crossed her mind. when the militants decided to try and break through and i heard you gania screaming grenades. were they explosion blew them all round his back wall. and it was all over all. we know that our call my hands on our commander won't leave us no matter how tough it gets we're team. there.