In the wake of the twin suicide bombings at a Moscow rock festival, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed yesterday the country would not give in to terrorism and asserted that Chechen rebels are supported by international terrorist groups.

　　The rebels that have been fighting Russian forces for nearly four years are seen by officials as being behind the Saturday blasts that killed 15 people, including the two female bombers. Scores more people were injured.

　　Nosgroupshas claimed responsibility for the attack, but news reports have said a passport was found at the site showing that one of the bombers was a Chechen.

　　The Russian president, in a meeting with his Cabinet, said that "today, after the latest series of terrorist acts, we can say that the bandits active in Chechnya are not simply connected with international terrorist organizations, they have become an integral, maybe the most dangerous part, of the international web."

　　"No country in the world bows to the dictates of terrorists and Russia will not do so either," Putin said, according to the news agency Interfax. "We must pluck them out from the basements and caves where they are hiding and destroy them."

　　The statement echoed the harsh language that the Russian president used as prime minister in 1999, shortly before Russian forces swept back into Chechnya at the start of the second war in the republic in a decade.

　　The conflict has deteriorated into a bloody stalemate in which Russian forces pound rebel positions with artillery and air strikes while the rebels kill Russians in near-daily hit-and-run attacks.

　　Just as the Russian capital's nerves are on edge, one person was killed yesterday and three injured when a grenade which was discovered by construction workers exploded in southern Moscow, according to a city police spokesman.

　　The grenade was one of three found by workers.