Russian Blast: Second Terrorist Attack Threatens Sochi Olympics

The latest blast, during rush hour Monday morning, killed 14 people, CNN  reported. The explosion appeared to have happened in the back of a  trolley bus and was set off by a male suicide bomber.

USA Today reported Sunday that 16 people were killed in  the first blast at a Volgograd train station. It fit a pattern of previous  terror attacks in the country.

Volgograd, known as Stalingrad during the  Soviet Union era, is one of the country’s main railway hubs. It is 620 miles  away from Sochi, where the Winter Olympics is scheduled to take place Feb. 7  through Feb. 24.

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for terrorist  attacks at the Sochi Olympics and other civilian targets earlier. Umarov said  that he wanted Chechen separatist groups to work together to prevent the  Olympics from happening.

“An open question is how much authority (Umarov)  really has over these different groups,” Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director at the  Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Russia and Eurasia Program told  USA Today. “A lot of the attacks seem to be inspired by Umarov but may not be  directly controlled by him.”

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