Moscow ? A suicide bomber who may have intended to attack Russia’s parliament blew herself up outside a nearby upscale hotel across from Red Square on Tuesday, killing five people and sparking fears of a new wave of terror attacks in the Russian capital.

The bombing, which also wounded at least 12 people, came on the heels of Sunday’s nationwide elections for parliament’s lower house and only days after a woman blew herself up on a train in southern Russia, killing 44 people.

Police were searching for a second woman suspected of involvement in Tuesday’s attack, warning that she also might be carrying explosives. No group claimed responsibility, but past attacks — including ones carried out by female suicide bombers — have been blamed on rebels from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

The midmorning explosion outside the National Hotel, shortly before President Vladimir Putin addressed a meeting at the Kremlin nearby, left the Russian capital on edge. People in Moscow were already jittery after a suicide attack in July and a Chechen rebel hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theater last year. This year alone, nearly 300 people have been killed in Russia in bombings and other attacks blamed on Chechens.

Two women, possibly the suicide bomber and her accomplice, appeared lost near Red Square before the blast and asked a passer-by for directions to the State Duma, said Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov.

The National Hotel sits on a corner diagonally across from a gate leading into Red Square and the Kremlin. The State Duma, which officials said appeared to be the intended target, is across the street, one of the capital’s most elegant shopping boulevards.

“Evidently, the bomb went off by accident,” Luzhkov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “The National Hotel was not the place where the suicide bombers had planned to stage the explosion.”

The blast shattered a Mercedes sedan parked nearby and smashed out windows on the upscale hotel, leaving white curtains billowing in the wind. Bodies and body parts were strewn about, including a head and a headless female body.

Twelve people were wounded, five of them in grave condition, said Lyubov Zhomova, the spokeswoman for the Moscow medical directorate. A Chinese national was among the injured.