Story by the Associated Press; Curated by Oliver Darcy.
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MOSCOW (AP) — At least 14 people were killed and scores were wounded Sunday by a female suicide bomber at a railway station in southern Russia, officials said, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February's Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack in Volgograd, but it came several months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for new attacks against civilian targets in Russia, including the Sochi Games.
Volgograd, 900 kilometers (550 miles) south of Moscow, lies about 650 kilometers northeast of Sochi, a Black Sea resort flanked by the North Caucasus Mountains.
Suicide bombings and other attacks linked to Islamic rebels roaming the North Caucasus have rocked Russia for years. The government has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, police and other security personnel to protect the Olympics, President Vladimir Putin's pet project, and the organizers have pledged to make the Sochi Games will be the "safest Olympics in history."
Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the nation's top investigative agency, the Investigative Committee, said the suicide bomber detonated her explosives in front of a metal detector.
A police officer guards a main entrance to the Volgograd railway station hit by an explosion, in Volgograd, Russia, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013. More then a dozen people were killed and scores were wounded Sunday by a female suicide bomber at a railway station in southern Russia, officials said, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February's Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. (AP Photo)
Markin put the death toll at 14, while Volgograd's regional governor, Sergei Bozhenov, said 15 died.
Russia's Health Ministry said about 50 people were injured.
In October, a female suicide bomber blew herself up on a city bus in Volgograd, killing six people and injuring about 30. Officials said the attacker came from the province of Dagestan, which has become the center of an Islamist insurgency that has spread across the region after two separatist wars in Chechnya.
Russian state television reported that Sunday's explosion occurred at the security gate at the station's entrance. The Interior Ministry said that one police officer died in the explosion and three others were wounded.
Images caught by a security camera facing the station, broadcast by Rossiya 24 television, showed the moment of explosion: a bright orange flash inside the station behind the main gate followed by plumes of smoke.
"We heard a loud bang from behind, saw a bright flash and fell on the floor," local resident Svetlana Demchenko, who witnessed the explosion, was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Numerous ambulances were parked outside the station, and several motionless bodies were placed on the pavement.
On Friday, three people were killed when a car rigged with explosives blew up on a street in Pyatigorsk, the center of a federal administrative district intended to stabilize the North Caucasus region.
In this photo taken on a cell phone, made available by Volgograd Mayor's Office, medics help wounded people, at an entrance to Volgograd railway station, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013. More then a dozen people were killed and scores were wounded Sunday by a suicide bomber at a railway station in southern Russia, officials said, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February's Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. (AP Photo/Nikita Baryshev,Volgograd Mayor's Office Handout)
Russia in past years has seen a series of terror attacks on buses, trains and airplanes, some carried out by suicide bombers.
Twin bombings on the Moscow subway in March 2010 by female suicide bombers killed 40 people and wounded more than 120. In January 2011, a male suicide bomber struck Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing 37 people and injuring more than 180.
Umarov, who had claimed responsibility for the 2010 and 2011 bombings, ordered a halt to attacks on civilian targets during the mass street protests against President Vladimir Putin in the winter of 2011-12. He reversed that order in July, urging his men to "do their utmost to derail" the Sochi Olympics which he described as "satanic dances on the bones of our ancestors."
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