Teenage 'Black Widow' confirmed as Moscow metro bomber

A 17-year-old baby-faced widow of a Caucasus militant was today identified as one of the two 'Black Widows' involved in Monday's twin suicide attack on Moscow metro that killed 40 people, as president Dmitry Medvedev ordered broadening of laws to combat terrorism.

Resident of Daghestan's Khasavyurt district Jannat Abdurahmanova, the teenage widow of Umalat Magomedov - a
prominent militant belonging to Daghestani Jamaat, is responsible for the first attack on Lubyanka metro station,
the Federal Operative Headquarters of the National
Anti-Terrorist Committee said.

"She is Jannat Abdurakhmanova (Abdulayeva), who was born in 1992 and lived in the Khasavyurt region of the North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan," the Committee was quoted as saying by Itar Tass news agency.

Her husband was killed last year in an anti-insurgency security operation. 

Several papers have also published the photograph of the couple holding pistols. 

Female suicide bombers are known in the Russian media as "Black Widows". 

The death toll has risen to 40 in the twin metro attacks as the investigators are waiting for the DNA tests of the second female bomber, widely believed to be 20-year old Markha Ustarkhanova, widow of Chechen militant Said-Amin Khizirov.

President Medvedev called for zero-tolerance against terrorists and underscored the need to punish all the actors involved in terror chain at par.

"It is not important what they do - cook soup or wash their cloths, like in a criminal gang they work for the end result.

"When we are talking about such crimes, there cannot be any leniency depending on the role played," Medvedev said at meeting with the parliamentary leaders.

He urged lawmakers to enact laws for stricter punishment of terrorists and their accomplices in the entire terror chain and regretted that due to its international obligations Russia cannot restore death penalty in the country.

Meanwhile, Russian daily Kommersant reported that Chechen militant Khizirov was killed last October in security operation to avert assassination of the pro-Moscow Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov.

Ustarkhanova had disappeared from her home and joined the militants after contacting them on internet and her parents had lodged a report with the police, which was looking for her as a "missing person".