KASPIISK, Russia (AP) - A remote-controlled bomb shattered a holiday parade Thursday in a Russian town near Chechnya (news - web sites), killing at least 34 people, including children, elderly veterans and members of a marching band that had just struck up the tune "Victory Day."

Seventeen servicemen — most of them musicians — 12 children and five adult bystanders were killed, said the Dagestan department of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

NTV television showed footage shot minutes after the explosion. Soldiers in camouflage uniforms lay splayed in the middle of the street, blood streaming from their wounds. Men carried limp children to waiting ambulances, as policemen shooed away shocked bystanders still clutching flowers they had planned to lay at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Screams filled the air.

Sappers moved in with mine-detectors to find any other unexploded devices. Investigators and officials gathered at the attack site.

The explosion was the latest of a series of terrorist and criminal attacks that have rocked the southern region. But coming on Victory Day, it shocked and angered people across Russia. News of the explosion broke during the annual military parade on Red Square, where thousands of troops marched past Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and World War II veterans.

Putin convened an emergency meeting in the Kremlin and appointed the head of the Federal Security Service to oversee the investigation into what he called a terrorist act.

Quoted:
I wonder what ever happened to the pro-Chechen crowd awhile back? Remember that poor Russian soldier getting his head cut off? Hmmmmmm....