Russia vows to 'destroy terrorists

Russian leaders have pledged to "find and wipe out" those behind twin suicide bombings at metro stations in Moscow that killed 39 people and left scores injured.

"They are simply beasts," Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said of the bombers after laying a wreath of red roses at Lubyanka metro station, one of the sites targeted.

"I don't have the slightest doubt: we will find and wipe out all of them," he said, ahead of a day of mourning for the victims on Tuesday.

His predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister, vowed that those responsible for the attacks would be "destroyed".

The death toll from the bombings, believed to be carried out by two female suicide bombers, rose on Tuesday to 39 after a young woman died in hospital, a Russian health official said.

Andrei Seltsovsky, the chief of Moscow's health department, said 71 other people were still in hospital, five of them in critical condition.

Putin, who cut short a visit to Siberia to return to Moscow, said "a crime that is terrible in its consequences and heinous in its manner has been committed".

"I am confident that law enforcement bodies will spare no effort to track down and punish the criminals. The terrorists will be destroyed," he said before visiting survivors in hospital.

Caucasus rebels blamed

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Russian authorities, who have blamed separatist fighters from the North Caucasus region for previous attacks, once again pointed the finger at the region's fighters.

Neave Barker, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Moscow, said Russian intelligence services remain convinced that two female suicide bombers with links to separatist fighters were responsible.

"Even before the death toll became official yesterday, the head of the intelligence service already made it very clear that they felt the links were obvious, this after only a few months the main line between Moscow and St. Petersburg was targeted by attackers," he said.

Officials said the attacks, at Lubyanka in the city centre and Park Kultury in the southwest, were carried out by two women wearing belts packed with the explosive hexogen and metal shrapnel.

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