The explosion which killed 12 people in a Moscow underpass earlier this month may have been the work of a mafia group with no link to Chechen separatists according to the Russian Defence Minister, Mr Vladimir Rushailo.
The bomb went off in Moscow's busiest underground street crossing and was initially blamed on Chechen separatists. Mr Rushailo, who is a hawk on Chechnya, told the capital's most popular newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, that the investigation into the bombing was "showing promise".
More than 30 people had been held for questioning in connection with the blast. He had, he said, come to the conclusion that the bomb had been planted to achieve maximum publicity rather than to take the lives of large numbers of civilians.
"Wahhabi fundamentalists do not act like that. Economic criminals do," Mr Rushailo said.
The Russian authorities frequently describe Chechen rebels as "Wahhabi fundamentalists", although the large majority of them belong to the Sufi movement within Islam rather than the puritanical Wahhabi sect which predominates in Saudi Arabia.
His reference to "economic criminals" will strike a chord with most Russians. The underpass in which the bomb exploded contained a large number of small shops and kiosks, most of which are forced to pay protection money to a krysha, the Russian word for roof and the slang term for the head of a mafia extortion group.
The Russian mafia has, several times in the past, shown itself to be totally ruthless in its policy of making examples of those who do not pay up. The blast took place at the height of Moscow's evening rush hour in an underground complex leading to three metro stations which cater for 120,000 passengers daily.
