A two-day police hunt for an Ingush woman believed to have arrived in Moscow to carry out a terrorist attack ended in farce Friday when it was revealed that she had fled to the capital to meet her Internet lover.
Law enforcement sources initially said Bella Barkinkhoyeva, 22, was suspected of being involved with extremist groups, including Muslim radicals and ethnic gangs.
Barkinkhoyeva's details were passed by Ingush law enforcers to Moscow police on Wednesday evening. She was identified through a phone call to her parents on Thursday and detained in the early hours of Friday morning.
But Ingush president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said later Friday that Barkinkhoyeva, a resident of the Ingush town of Karabulak, had fallen in love with a man on the Internet and decided to join him in Moscow, Gazeta.ru reported. A source within Ingushetia's law enforcement agencies said she gathered her possessions, wrote a note for her family and left.
Law enforcement authorities remain on alert after two female suicide bombers from the North Caucasus bombed the Moscow metro in March, killing at least 40 people.
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