How sad is this? Teenage bride of Islamist militant named as 'Black Widow' suicide bomber

The 17-year-old bride of an Islamist militant was named today as one of the “Black Widow” suicide bombers who killed 39 people in the Moscow Metro.

Investigators believe that Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova blew herself up at the Lubyanka station, close to the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), in revenge for the killing of her husband, Kommersant newspaper reported.

It published a photograph of the teenager exuding childish defiance as she brandished a pistol in black Islamic dress next to her husband, Umalat Magomedov. He was killed on New Year’s Eve in a shoot-out with police in his native Dagestan.



Magomedov was regarded as the leader of a terrorist group in Dagestan linked to the Islamist movement of Doku Umarov, who has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings.

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Abdurakhmanova, also from Dagestan, is said to have become acquainted with Magomedov as a 16-year-old via the internet. He took her as his wife soon afterwards, though it is unclear whether they were married formally.

Magomedov, also known as Albaro, died when traffic police flagged down a Lada car in which he and three other militants were travelling in the town of Khasavyurt, Dagestan. Police said that the group began shooting at the checkpoint and were killed when officers returned fire.

Police released grisly photographs of the facial remains of the two female bombers this week in an attempt to identify them. Abdurakhmanova’s head had been completely severed from her body in the explosion.

The woman who carried out the second bombing at Park Kultury station has not been identified yet but Kommersant reported that investigators suspected it was a 20-year-old Chechen woman, Markha Ustarkhanova.

She was the widow of the self-styled “Emir” of the Gudermes region of Chechnya, Said-Emi Khizriyev, who was shot dead by police last October. Khizriyev had been accused of plotting to asassinate Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed President.

A survivor of the Park Kultury attack gave a vivid account of the moment the suicide bomber struck. Sim Eih Xing, a medical student from Malaysia, recounted how he had stood next to the woman for 20 minutes before stepping out of the carriage at the station just before she detonated the device.

He said that he noticed the woman in a purple jacket “in a very abnormal posture as if she wanted to get out of the metro” when he entered the train two stops before Park Kultury. Sim, 23, told the Moscow Times: “She wasn’t wearing a scarf. Her eyes were very open, like on drugs, and she barely blinked, and it was scary.”

He had intended to stay on the train but delays caused by the explosion that had already taken place at Lubyanka prompted him to get off at Park Kultury to switch lines. As soon as he stepped on the platform, he said, there was an explosion.

“It was very loud, but I could see white sparks on my left. I thought I was dead at that time,” he said. “I felt like I was being controlled by someone else. I didn’t panic. I just walked like normal.”

When he turned around, he saw dead and injured people throughout the carriage. Miraculously, Sim suffered only minor cuts to one leg and singed hair, and was able to walk out of the station.

“I kept on praying all the way up the metro because I thought that there might be another bomb. If I hadn’t gotten out of the wagon at that time I would be dead already. It’s unexplainable.”