Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov says the Moscow metro bombs were in retaliation for the special forces' killing of "poor" civilians picking garlic on Feb. 11.
But the events that transpired on Feb. 11 and 12 were not so simple.
The four civilians, who were picking wild garlic shoots to sell at local markets, died along with 18 suspected Islamic militants during two days of gunfights in mountainous forests near Arshty, Ingushetia.
Soon after the clashes, a spokesman for Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Kaloi Akhilgov, confirmed that four civilians "were caught by crossfire and were killed" in an operation along with 18 militants.
Ingush prosecutor Yury Turygin said Feb. 13 that among the slain rebels was a former personal bodyguard of Umarov, identified only by his last name, Israilov.
Activists with the Memorial human rights group and Human Rights Watch visited Arshty and the surrounding area a couple days later.
According to a Memorial report released Feb. 15, law enforcement agencies announced a counterterrorism operation after detecting a large group of suspected rebels near the village on Feb. 11. Citing eyewitnesses, the report said the four slain civilians had come from neighboring Chechnya and had not been warned about the operation in the area.
Memorial published photographs of the dead bodies of the garlic pickers, all of whom were under 21.
One of them, Movsar Tatayev, was found lying in bloodstained snow with a bag of garlic on his shoulders. His relatives told Memorial that his body had three gunshot wounds and several knife cuts.
Memorial, which interviewed dozens of residents, concluded that several civilians remained missing after the Feb. 11 clashes.
Umarov said in a video posted on a rebel web site Wednesday that Federal Security Service commandos had intentionally attacked four civilians gathering wild garlic outside the Ingush village of Arshty on Feb. 11 with knives and then made fun of the corpses.
"These people were mercilessly destroyed," he said.
"That shooting was just lunacy," Memorial spokesman Alexander Cherkasov said Saturday, The Associated Press reported. "And that lunacy was used to justify terrorism."