By empty (2/9/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

State Security Minister Valeri Khaburzania told journalists in Tbilisi on 9 February that his agency has detained a man from the North Caucasus, Nazir Aidobolov, who was allegedly recruited by Abkhaz intelligence and sent to Georgia to establish contact with Chechens in the Pankisi Gorge. Khaburzania claimed that Aidobolov had instructions to go to the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on 5 February and inform the resident Russian Federal Security Service officer that a major terrorist attack was planned for the following day in Moscow, and a second several days later in Stavropol Krai, and to name Chechens from Pankisi as the organizers. (Interfax).

By empty (2/9/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Minister without portfolio Vladimir Zorin, who is responsible for nationalities policy, spoke out on 9 February against inciting nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments in the wake of the 6 February Moscow subway blast. \"International terrorism is unquestionably the No. 1 danger today,\" Zorin said.

By empty (2/9/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Deputy Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Vyacheslav Ushakov said on 9 February that his agency, which is leading the investigation into the 6 February Moscow metro blast, is now working on the theory that the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber. The Moscow explosion, he said, was similar to one on a commuter train in the Stavropol Krai town of Yessentuki in December that killed more than 40 people. The Russian authorities believe the Yessentuki bombing and a bombing at an open-air rock concert in the Moscow neighborhood of Tushino in July were carried out by Chechen suicide bombers.