Russian suicide bomber kills 16 and injures 100

Officials said the blast in the city of Vladikavkaz was caused by a suicide bomber who drove up to a local market in an explosives-packed car and whose headless body was later discovered.

The bomb stuffed with metal bolts and metal bars created carnage around the busy market just before lunch, reducing several cars to wreckage and shattering windows of nearby buildings.

Half-naked charred corpses with disfigured faces were laid out on stretchers amid the remnants of tomatoes and melons from fruit stalls, as people wept looking for their loved ones.

Officials warned the death toll was likely to go up as many of the injured were in a critical condition.

The attack in the capital of the mainly Christian region of North Ossetia was the latest strike to hit the Russian Caucasus, plagued by an Islamist insurgency that has claimed scores of lives in the past months.

President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to do everything to track down those behind the bombing.

The death toll rose to 16 after an 18-month-old toddler died of his injuries. The boy's three-year-old brother was also in intensive care.

Maria Gatsoyeva, a spokeswoman for the regional investigators, said nearly 100 people had been wounded.

The blast had been caused by explosives weighing 30-40 kilogrammes of TNT equivalent.

Russia has been on a state of high alert after the double bombings carried out by two female suicide bombers on the Moscow metro on March 29 that killed 40 and wounded more than 100.