Suicide Bomber Hits Russian Bus

Female Islamist Suicide Bomber Suspected.

A suspected Islamist terrorist blew herself up on a crowded bus Monday in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, killing six others, authorities said.

The attack was one of the deadliest terrorist acts outside the volatile North Caucasus region in more than two years and fueled security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in February.

President Vladimir Putin was receiving regular updates and the head of the Investigative Committee, one of Russia’s top law-enforcement officials, flew to Volgograd to supervise the probe, officials said. The Interior Ministry warned people across the country to be more vigilant against other possible attacks.

A spokesman for the Investigative Committee said “preliminary data” indicate the bomber was 30-year-old Naida Asiyalova, a native of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in the Caucasus that has become the center of an Islamist insurgency in recent years. The official said Ms. Asiyalova was the common-law wife of Dmitry Sokolov, a Muscovite who had joined the Islamist fighters in a Dagestan-based cell.

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