Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty repots:

More than a dozen people have been killed in an explosion in the Russian republic of North Ossetia that officials say was the work of a suicide car bomber.

The midday explosion took place in a busy central market in the local capital of Vladikavkaz. Grisly video footage from the site showed dead bodies lying unattended in pools of blood and frantic doctors carrying injured victims in their arms.

Officials variously put the death toll at 14 or 15. It was unclear if the bomber was included in either figure. At least 80 others were reported injured in the blast, including a number of young children.

Officials in North Ossetia and Moscow say the explosion was the result of a suicide bomber who parked a car packed with explosives near the market entrance.

The Interfax news agency quotes the North Ossetian Interior Ministry as saying the Volga car involved in the bombing had a number plate from the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office, said a terrorism investigation had been launched into the attack.

A second explosive that failed to detonate was later detected at the entrance to the market.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the car-bomb attack. Speaking during a meeting with the chairman of Russia’s Union of Muftis, Putin said the bombing was “aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens,” and he expected Russian Muslims to make a “decisive contribution” to combating extremism.

The North Caucasus has been a growing source of concern for the Kremlin, as Islamic extremism and violent attacks continue to rise.

A suicide car-bomb attack on September 4 at a Russian Army base in Daghestan left at least five people dead, and came just days after an assassination attempt on a local Daghestan official.

Many local authorities say endemic poverty and the presence of hostile Russian security forces have contributed to the general unrest.

North Ossetia, which is predominantly Orthodox Christian, has generally seen less violence than other North Caucasus republics. But it is notorious as the site of the Beslan school siege tragedy, in which more than 330 children and adults were killed in September 2004.

North Ossetia also has its own history of bomb attacks. Alan Tskhurbayev, a former correspondent with RFE/RL’s Russian Service, spoke to RFE/RL from the scene of the blast.

“It’s necessary to say that this isn’t the first blast in the Vladikavkaz central market. It’s been the site of frequent explosions, starting in 1999, when 52 people were killed here,” Tskhurbayev said. “If memory serves, this is already the fourth blast here, or something close to it.”

Today’s market blast comes 11 years to the day after a bomb destroyed an apartment block in the Russian capital Moscow, killing 94 people.

The Kremlin blamed the blast on Chechen militants and used the incident and subsequent blasts as a pretext for initiating a second federal war in Chechnya.

Ella Kesaeva, leader of the victim advocacy movement Voice of Beslan, said that the memorial began Wednesday morning at 9:15 am – the moment when Chechen and Ingush militants seized the school, demanding an end to the Second Chechen War.

“There are a lot of people,” said Kesaeva of the memorial. According to Interfax, about 3000 people came to honor the dead, including relatives of the children and teachers killed and the leadership of the republic, headed by President Taymuraz Mamsurov.

Portraits of the victims, including special forces operatives who were killed in the raid that ended the three-day siege, were hung on the walls of the school’s sports arena. Many visitors laid flowers and lit candles in their memory.

The memorial is planned to last until September 3, when a delegation is expected to come from the European Parliament.

A statement published Wednesday from Voice of Beslan issued the latest of many demands for an objective investigation of how the Russian authorities dealt with the hostage crisis. On the third day of the siege, federal security forces controversially used tanks and flamethrowers to raid the school. In the end, at least 334 of the more than 1100 hostages died in the operation, among them 186 children. “We feel that the use of heavy machinery during the raid was a war crime,” said Kesaeva.

The organization believes that the way in which the Russian authorities dealt with the siege violated the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights that guarantees the right to life and freedom from torture.

In an open letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev published on the organization’s website on Wednesday, parents of children killed in the raid asked the head of state to remember “the wounds of the Beslan tragedy.” For more than two years, they said, the president has ignored parents’ requests to hold an objective investigation, forcing them to look to other avenues for help.

“For six years, the official agencies have demonstrated their unwillingness to hold an objective investigation,” reads the letter, “so we are forced to appeal to competent international associations to carry out an objective investigation.”

The Beslan hostage crisis became the basis for a variety of measures to consolidate power within the Russian federal government. Under President Vladimir Putin, law enforcement agencies were given a broader range of authority, and the direct election of the heads of federal regions was abolished; these leaders are now nominated by the president and voted on by local legislatures. Critics argue that the government took advantage of the tragedy to pull through these and other similar measures, which they say are detrimental for democracy in the country.