President Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise visit today to the violence-wracked southern province of Dagestan, telling police and security forces to use tougher, «more cruel» measures to fight the «scum» responsible for terrorist attacks, according to AP. Russia's security chief said some terror suspects had been detained. Twin suicide bombings in Moscow _ which Islamic militants from the North Caucasus claim to have carried out _ have refocused attention on the violence that for years has been confined to Russia's predominantly Muslim regions. The rush-hour attacks Monday on the Moscow subway killed 39 people and left nearly 90 hospitalized. On Wednesday, two suicide bombings in Dagestan killed 12 people, including nine policemen, a frequent target of attacks in part because they represent Russian authority. Another explosion Thursday killed two suspected militants and wounded a third in Dagestan near the border with Chechnya. Police said the men may have been transporting a makeshift bomb. Medvedev on Thursday copied the style of Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, both in his dress _ a black T-shirt under a black suit coat _ and his rough language in ordering that much more be done to stop the attacks. «The measures to fight terrorism should be expanded, they should be more effective, more harsh, more cruel, if you please,» he told federal and local officials in a televised meeting. Funerals were held Thursday at four Moscow cemeteries for some of the subway victims. At the Khovanskoye cemetery, the family, friends and colleagues of Anna Permyakova, a 34-year-old nurse, could not hold back tears as they placed flowers on her open casket. Permyakova had worked in a rehabilitation center and many of her former patients attended the funeral in wheelchairs. Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov, who joined Medvedev in Dagestan, said the organizers of the Moscow attacks have been identified as «bandits» from the Northern Caucasus and some had been detained. He did not give specific numbers. «We know the personalities of organizers,» Bortnikov said during the meeting. «We have detained a number of people, conducted interrogations, got evidence.»
