An explosion at a Moscow restaurant on Saturday that killed three people and wounded 21 more was a bombing, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said, the Tass state news agency reported.
“A home-made explosive device blew up at a restaurant in Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow, killing three people,” said the committee, quoted by Tass.
An unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive device into the restaurant died in the blast, as did a security guard and a patron, the news agency said.
State media outlet Ria Novosti reported the woman attempted to smuggle the IED into the establishment but the security guard refused to let her in before the bomb exploded.
The authorities did not name those killed or injured nor did they say who they thought might have been responsible. Russia’s FSB security service said earlier this year that authorities would step up protection for high-ranking military officials after a series of assassinations and attempted killings it blamed on Ukraine.
The Kommersant daily newspaper cited its own sources as saying that the bomb had been intended to maim and kill guests who were enjoying themselves on the restaurant’s summer terrace outside.
It suggested that the bomb had been set off by someone else remotely and that the woman carrying it may not have known that it was an explosive device.