Belarus: suspects “confess” to Minsk subway bombing (VIDEO)

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Wednesday that two suspects had confessed to carrying out the Minsk subway bombing that killed at least 12 and wounded more than 200 on Monday.

In a televised statement, Lukashenko said the suspects admitted taking part in the bombing, but that he still did not know who ordered the rush hour bombing in the capital, labeled a "terrorist act" by authorities — the first in the country's post-Soviet history.

The bomb exploded as people were coming off trains during the evening rush hour in the city's main Oktyabrskaya metro station is located close to the Lukashenko's residence.

Belarus observed a day of mourning for the victims on Wednesday.

The opposition earlier in the week voiced fears that Lukashenko might use the attack to launch an increased crackdown on dissent.

Lukashenko on Wednesday said he had asked the country's prosecutor general to interrogate opposition activists in connection with the blast "regardless of democracy, and cries and wailing of foreign sufferers," according to the LA Times.

He said opposition activists might know who "ordered the attack."

Lukashenko, dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by the West, has run the former Soviet nation of 10 million for nearly 17 years, retaining Soviet-style controls over the economy and cracking down on opposition and independent media.

Lukashenko also reportedly said the bombing may have been "a gift from abroad" to destabilize the country.

According to GlobalPost's Russia correspondent, Miriam Elder, writing in the Bric Yard blog, he was re-elected to a fourth term in December elections that were widely criticized as neither free nor fair. An opposition protest at the results erupted into violence when security services cracked down. Lukashenko has been bearing down on the opposition ever since.

The president took his 6-year-old son to visit the site of the explosion about two hours after the blast, according to the AP. He then ordered the country's feared security forces to "turn everything inside-out" to find the culprits.

According to Elder, Belarus appears to be in a downward spiral. She writes:

Things aren’t looking good economically — the government has already allowed a 10 percent slide in the ruble against the dollar, and some bankers expect a further devaluation soon.

The blast received nearly immediate coverage on state-run TV, which raised some eyebrows. After all, dictatorships hate and fear nothing more than uncertainty.

Last month, out of nowhere, Lukashenko compared the situation in Belarus to Chechnya, the troubled republic once home to Russia’s most violent separatist rebels. “If someone in our midst wants Belarus to have a Chechnya in the West – that’s no problem, but it will be more difficult than in Chechnya. I think no one needs that.” He also spoke against the turmoil in the Middle East: “From this Tunisia-ization and Cairo-ization, the world will continue to shudder.”