It seems the bombing of that Russian commuter train which was supposed to have tumbled off a bridge (but its speed was too high and so it flew over the bridge before derailing) was apparently a terrorist attack – at least that is the claim of a Chechen terrorist outfit:

A man identifying himself as a member of a Chechen extremist organization says the group is responsible for the August 13 bomb attack on a Russian express train running between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The man, who identified himself as the deputy commander of Riyad us-Salikhin, told RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service in a phone call that the bombing, which injured more than 60 people, was in retaliation for Russia’s role in Chechnya.

The identity of the caller and his claims could not be independently verified.

This would not be the best time for Chechen separatists to start attacking Russians. The result would be to elect someone even tougher on Chechnya than Putin has been in his two terms. But history shows terrorists seem to always make the same mistake by attacking when they should go underground. Russian authorities have leads which likely point to this being a terrorist attack, but not all possibilities have been ruled out:

Investigators probing into Monday’s bomb attack against a Moscow-St. Petersburg express train have identified the first suspect, Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor-General Alexander Bastrykin told the media.

“There have appeared the first pieces of information about a potential suspect,” Bastrykin, the chief of the Prosecutor-General’s Office investigation committee told the media on the site of the incident.

He would not elaborate, adding that the details constituted an investigation secret.

The deputy prosecutor-general said it was too early to discuss the motives of the crime. Several versions are being considered.

“A final one has not been chosen yet, but terrorist attack is among the likely ones. We cannot exclude some others,” he added.

The device would seem like something that could be built and used anywhere. Maybe we are about to be reminded, with elections coming up next year in America and Russia, that terrorist like to blow up people during these periods to get media headlines and garner support.