At least 13 dead in suicide attack on Russian train station

                                                
Up to 13 people are reported to have died after a blast ripped through a train station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.
The blast, captured on CCTV, shows a huge orange fireball filling the hall and smoke billowing out through shattered windows.
Russia’s state Investigative Committee said a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the entrance hall of the station, just in front of a metal detector.
Two police officers who were checking the passengers are said to be among those who have died.
The death toll is said to be rising. Latest figures suggest 13 people have died and as many as 50 people were injured as a result of the blast.

This is the second deadly attack in southern Russia in three days.
On December 27, a car bomb in Pyatigorsk killed three people; while on October 21 2013, a female suicide bomber also struck in Volgograd, killing seven people.
Sunday’s attack will bolster fears of attacks by Islamist militants as Russia prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Volgograd lies close to Russia’s North Caucasus, a strip of mostly Muslim provinces plagued by near-daily violence.
In a video posted online in July, Islamist insurgent leader and Chechen warlord, Doku Umarov, urged militants to use “maximum force” to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from staging the Olympics.
The Games will be held in the Black Sea city of Sochi, around 690 kilometres from Volgograd, in February 2014.