A SAUDI Islamic militant based in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is suspected of being behind last Friday??s bomb attack on the Moscow metro, which killed 39 people and wounded more than 130.

Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamidi, 36, has been identified by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, as one of the most powerful figures in the Chechen rebel leadership. As the commander of several hundred Arabs fighting alongside the rebels, he is thought to have been responsible for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people in just over a year.

He is also believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002, which ended with the deaths of 40 Chechen terrorists and 129 of their hostages.

Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network.

??If operations in Chechnya continue they will harm Chechen people, so we have decided to export operations inside Russia,?? declared Walid, a bearded man with long black hair who wore a uniform and spoke against the backdrop of a Chechen flag.

??We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. God willing they will pay for their fight with their blood and their sons.??

The statement raised fears of a series of bombings aimed at disrupting next month??s presidential election, which is expected to return Vladimir Putin to power by a landslide.

Aslan Maskhadov, the fugitive Chechen leader, yesterday denied responsibility for Friday??s attack, the worst of its kind in Moscow. But he does not speak for more radical rebel commanders such as Walid and Shamil Basayev, the militant Chechen with whom the Saudi is said to have plotted the theatre siege.

Despite the ferocity of the blast, there was an unexpected air of normality yesterday at the Avtozavodskaya metro station, which is lined with white marble and Stalinist mosaics glorifying Soviet workers. Trains were running to schedule and there was no obvious police presence. A bucket filled with red roses and carnations at the entrance to the station and a lingering smell of burnt bodies were the only reminders of the carnage of 24 hours earlier.

Many of the passengers were in sombre mood, however, as they contemplated the fate of those who died when the bomb ?? packed with pieces of metal ?? was detonated in a tunnel 300 yards north of the station shortly after 8.30am.

??I??ll never feel safe on the metro again,?? said Irina Ignatieva, 28. ??This is what we have always dreaded. The police will never be able to prevent further attacks. But I have no choice ?? I can??t afford to travel by car.??

Police were questioning survivors and studying footage from a surveillance camera of two women suspected of being suicide bombers and a man believed to have been their accomplice, standing on the platform with two suitcases. Shortly before the explosion the man had apparently approached a member of staff and said: ??You??ll have a party on your hands.??

The bomb exploded in the train??s second carriage moments after it had pulled away from the station. The carriage was ripped open by a blast so powerful that metal shrapnel pierced the walls of the tunnel, which filled with black smoke.

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