Moscow Airport bombing - at least 31 dead

[Lonestar]

Does anyone know who was behind the attack and why?

I'm going to take a completely wild shot here and say "North Caucus Moslems"

[noncredible]

Fuckheads.

Its just so damn hard to protect against a well planed suicide attack. You can mitigate their effects to a large extent if you have good security, but its still the case that if someone is willing (or at least going) to give up their life to make themselves the ultimate 'smart-bomb', its damn near impossible to stop them without knowing about it in advance.

There is a simple, one-step process to make life hard for suicide bombers: Ban the wearing of burkas. They could still smuggle things in in suitcases, but it would be harder.

On another note, on the Slovakian news one witness said she saw some people going around the metal detectors.

[Lonestar]

There is a simple, one-step process to make life hard for suicide bombers: Ban the wearing of burkas. They could still smuggle things in in suitcases, but it would be harder.

On another note, on the Slovakian news one witness said she saw some people going around the metal detectors.

I would like you to name 5 suicide bombings that occured in Europe or North America that involved the bomber wearing a Burqa.

[noncredible]

There is a simple, one-step process to make life hard for suicide bombers: Ban the wearing of burkas. They could still smuggle things in in suitcases, but it would be harder.

On another note, on the Slovakian news one witness said she saw some people going around the metal detectors.

I would like you to name 5 suicide bombings that occured in Europe or North America that involved the bomber wearing a Burqa.

Point taken. Also, just wondering, what do suicide bombers usually use?

Also, did this take place outside in the main hall or inside the arrivals area where you collect baggage?

[Broomstick]

There is a simple, one-step process to make life hard for suicide bombers: Ban the wearing of burkas. They could still smuggle things in in suitcases, but it would be harder.

Given that reports are that the bomber was male this statement clearly indicates that you are having a kneejerk reaction and have not actually looked into this particular incident. Next time, at least read the media reports.

Seriously, burkas aren't a feature of most suicide bombings, which, among other things, seem to mostly use male bombers who aren't wearing burkas.

[Lonestar]

Given that reports are that the bomber was male this statement clearly indicates that you are having a kneejerk reaction and have not actually looked into this particular incident. Next time, at least read the media reports.

Seriously, burkas aren't a feature of most suicide bombings, which, among other things, seem to use male bombers who aren't wearing burkas.

Burqa-bombers have occured in Iraq(I guess that would be "Nijab-bombers" but Burqa-Bombers sound better). My point to Fajnar is that such an event hasn't occured in Europe.

(yet)

Fajner,

Read the article, but to answer your question it occured before the security checkpoing. It would be akin to just walking up to ticketing and setting the bomb off there instead of trying to smuggle it on the plane.

[noncredible]

There is a simple, one-step process to make life hard for suicide bombers: Ban the wearing of burkas. They could still smuggle things in in suitcases, but it would be harder.

Given that reports are that the bomber was male this statement clearly indicates that you are having a kneejerk reaction and have not actually looked into this particular incident. Next time, at least read the media reports.

Seriously, burkas aren't a feature of most suicide bombings, which, among other things, seem to use male bombers who aren't wearing burkas.

The media report didn't say...

But yeah, that was was basically an instinctive "they're all suicide bombers" reaction.

I'll check the media reports posted here (I read a different one) to see where the explosive was...

EDIT: Actually, I'm gonna go sleep. I'll read the media report links tomorrow.

[MKSheppard]

RUMINT yesterday was that the attack was a female suicide bomber with a male "minder", and that it was the minder's head which was found almost immediately after the attack.

Today we should have some more info.

Ah here we go:

Link

Russian security services warned in December that there were two attack teams primed to carry out attacks, sparking fears there could still be terrorists at large who were prepared to carry out another attack.

Intelligence sources said that one of the squads was likely to have established a base, at a house in Moscow, where the suicide belts to be used in attacks were assembled.

Russian security sources said yesterday that a male and female suicide bomber from the Black Widow brigades had carried out the bombing together. The attack had been closely supervised by three accomplices, who had watched from a distance and are now being sought by the authorities.

A Russian security official said the bomb that ripped through Moscow's Domodedovo airport was carried by a woman who mingled in the crowd at arrivals. She then either set the bomb off herself or someone else detonated it using a remote-control device.

An eyewitness said the woman had been dressed in black and had worn a veil, suggesting she may have been a 'Black Widow' suicide bomber from the North Caucasus region out to revenge the killing of her husband by Russian security forces.

"The explosion occurred the moment the presumed female suicide bomber opened her bag," the security source told the RIA Novosti news agency. "The terrorist was accompanied by a man. He was standing beside her and (the blast) tore off his head."

Intelligence services have been embarrassed by the revelation that informants had warned of an attack on an airport in the Russian capital just weeks before the incident. Security experts said the tip-off had revealed that a criminal gang based in the Moscow suburbs was assisting a Chechen bombing making squad and that a suicide cell was travelling from a training camp.

A newspaper close to Russia's FSB security service published what it claimed was a warning to Moscow police issued in December that said there was credible intelligence that a suicide squad made up of three women and one man from Chechnya was headed to Moscow.

The memo said the team had spent time in Pakistan and Iran and that one of the women had a relative with a flat in Moscow that might be used as a bomb making factory. Another group of five Islamist militants trained in Pakistan was also expected to cross into Russia soon, it added.

An al-Qaeda linked website said that the group Islamic Caucasus Emirate, led by the rebel Doku Umarov, was poised to claim it had staged the attack. It said that Russia's harsh military measures against independence activists in the Caucasus had provoked the attack. It said: "You disbelievers are the firewood of Hell. You will enter it."

The daily Kommersant newspaper said security service officials were alerted to the extent of the threat when a woman accidentally blew herself up on New Year's Eve in Moscow. It later emerged that her husband was in jail for being a member of an Islamist terror group and that she and a girlfriend had been sent to Moscow from the internal Muslim republic of Dagestan to commit an act of terror.

Russian media published a grisly picture of the male terrorist's severed head that was being circulated around police and security services in the troubled mostly Muslim North Caucasus region to see if anyone recognised him.

The region, which includes restive internal Russian republics such as Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, is in the grip of a growing Islamist insurgency and has served as a launching pad in the past for a series of deadly strikes on civilian targets in Moscow and other cities.

[K. A. Pital]

Whoever among the Wahhabis thought about "they killed your husband, now have your revenge - blow yourself up!" was a smart, even if cruel, person. From what we gathered from informal sources (because sure as hell watching Russian TV is pointless) is that many women do it after their husbands were killed during in CT operations.

[Chardok]

Does anyone know who was behind the attack and why?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Did it.

[Dark Hellion]

Whoever among the Wahhabis thought about "they killed your husband, now have your revenge - blow yourself up!" was a smart, even if cruel, person. From what we gathered from informal sources (because sure as hell watching Russian TV is pointless) is that many women do it after their husbands were killed during in CT operations.

Of course it only works if you have a society were women derive their self-worth entirely from their husbands. A woman who sees herself as having value outside of her relations with men has reasons not to blow herself up. She may still go for revenge (and a vindictive woman on a warpath is possibly the scariest thing in the universe ) but death will be incidental instead of the express purpose.

The much smarter and infinitely crueler bastard was the man who found this little secret of repression in the first place. Basically, it's too damn much work to oppress people yourself and it builds a great deal of antagonism. The trick is to convince them to oppress themselves and bind it with pretty ribbons of duty, honor, heritage, liberation, love or defiance.

[K. A. Pital]

Whoever among the Wahhabis thought about "they killed your husband, now have your revenge - blow yourself up!" was a smart, even if cruel, person. From what we gathered from informal sources (because sure as hell watching Russian TV is pointless) is that many women do it after their husbands were killed during in CT operations.

Of course it only works if you have a society were women derive their self-worth entirely from their husbands.

But you see, DH, there was a time when women were forcibly liberated (and I'm not joking, it was done by force and met armed resistance) - that was when the USSR started kicking the shit out of Islamists and tribalists in Central Asia, e.g. Ferghana valley, and the Caucasus. But now it's "unjustified opression" you see. Our oligarchs give the bandit Ramzan Kadyrov who takes pride in the fact he'd been killing "those feds" since age 15 tons of money, so that he could build the biggest mosque in Europe in Chechnya. Because you see, you gotta respect culture. Not people. Culture. If you sovietize Islamic regions, that is a legacy of opression and should be done away with. If Islamists seek to now create a Sharia state in all of North Caucasus and have turned it all from Georgia to Ossetia and Ingushetia into a huge warzone, that's just a side effect, or that's what our talking heads say.

She may still go for revenge (and a vindictive woman on a warpath is possibly the scariest thing in the universe ) but death will be incidental instead of the express purpose.

If the women and youth of Caucasus had jobs and every single person was standing on a factory making stuff, the problem of terrorism would largely evaporate. But they seek to attack the symptom, because attacking the cause would require (gasp!) using some of the wealth they stole from the Russian people for a good cause. And no, not just giving tons of money to the local bandit in charge. Instead give them tools and factories which cannot be sold, and put a KGB FSB guard on each factory of that sort. But that's too much for them. Better have Kadyrov buy himself a fancy limousine and a CHF 300 000 watch.

[MKSheppard]

earlier a woman blew herself up in Moscow. It's looking like she was part of the same group that attacked Domodedovo:

Link

A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

The woman intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds

The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.

Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.

She was at her Moscow safe house at the time getting ready with two accomplices, both of whom survived and were seen fleeing the scene.

Islamist terrorists in Russia often use cheap unused mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.

The phones are usually kept switched off until the very last minute but in this case, Russian security sources believe, the terrorists were careless.

The dead woman has not been identified. Her handler, a 24-year-old woman from the internal Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, has been named as Zeinat Suyunova. Her husband is apparently still serving time in jail for himself being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.

Security sources believe the new year's eve bomber and the airport bombers may have been members of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaeda strongholds which was sent to the Russian capital in December to target the city's transportation system.

The security services circulated a warning to Moscow police that month, saying there was credible intelligence of two teams of Islamist militants poised to strike in different parts of the country.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with Monday's airport bombing, which left 35 people dead, and it is not clear whether the attack was carried out by one or two suicide bombers. Police are trying to identify the severed head of a male suicide bomber recovered from the scene and are trying to confirm whether he was accompanied by a female suicide bomber. Security sources said an apartment on the edge of Moscow thought to be a bomb-making factory was raided on 20 January but that it was empty. The Kremlin is under growing pressure to explain why its policy of pacifying the predominantly Muslim flank of southern Russia, which is used as a launch pad for such terror strikes, has failed. President Dmitry Medvedev fired Andrei Alexeyev, a senior transport policeman on Wednesday, pinning much of the blame on the police and the airport authorities. "Those who did not work properly must be punished," he said.

[Broomstick]

I'm probably going to hell for this, but I laughed out loud at the prospect of suicide bomber detonating early due to spam.

[MKSheppard]

Link

Police are urgently seeking information about Vitaly Razdobudko, a 32-year-old ethnic Russian man who converted to Islam. He is a native of Russia's volatile Stavropol region which is located around 800 miles south of Moscow, close to the Muslim internal republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

An alleged member of a radical Wahhabite terror group called the Nogai Jamaat, he is suspected of being one of the bloody attack's main organisers. Some sources have suggested he may also have personally taken part in the attack. The bombing, at Moscow's busy Domodedovo airport, left 35 people dead.

Family members reported Mr Razdobudko and his wife missing last November and he has been on a federal wanted list since. Police suspect he may also have had a hand in a car bombing in the southern Russian town of Pyatigorsk last summer that injured thirty people. A picture of him published by Russian media on Thursday showed a man of Slavic appearance with closely cropped hair and a beard beneath his chin.

Up to nine other suspects are also being sought in connection with the bombing, security sources added. Like Mr Razdobudko, many of them are suspected members of the Nogai Jamaat, a terror group that emerged in the early part of the last decade in southern Russia and sided with Chechen radicals. Russia's national anti-terrorism committee has yet to officially name the group or the individuals it believes were responsible for the airport bombing however and has cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions.

President Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise visit to a metro station in central Moscow on Thursday where he inspected security arrangements in an apparent attempt to show that the Kremlin is taking the terror threat from Islamist radicals seriously.

-------------------------------------------

As for the Nogai Jamaat; they're not even Chechens but a different random ethnic minoritiy that prays to Allah:

----------------

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cac ... news]=4354

It has become fairly common for the Nogai jamaat to be overlooked, even by the leaders of the Caucasus resistance movement. It is never listed as one of the “fronts” or “sectors” of the resistance, making some believe that the Nogai battalion is finished forever. This is most certainly untrue, since a separate Stavropol sector does exist, and this is exactly the territory for which the Nogais are responsible. Additionally, the Nogais are present in not just Stavropol, but also in northern Chechnya (Shelkovskii district), northern Dagestan (Nogaiskii district) and parts of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, making them a presence in four republics of the region and a mobile force that is capable of exerting its influence in a variety of different places.

Today’s Nogai jamaat was formed from the fighters of the Nogai battalion that participated in the first Chechen campaign. During the second Chechen campaign, the battalion was composed of those Nogais that lived in the Shelkovskii district of Chechnya and was commanded by Shamil Basaev. One of the first leaders of the group was Sultan Dautov, a well-educated man who had served as a representative in the 1997 Chechen parliament. Dautov was perfectly at home in the jungles of Chechen politics and although known as “one of Basaev’s men,” he never allowed the Nogai battalion to become part of the political infighting that occurred in 1998-99.

The entire battalion fought in the battles for Grozny in 1999-2000, where it lost the majority of its members (which according to some estimates consisted of approximately 20 men), including the political and military leader Sultan Dautov. The remnants of the battalion (including Ulubey “Sedik” Elgushiev, Rasul “Volchok” Tambulatov, Kamil Kuntuganov, Arislan Bimurzaev, Emir Takhir Bataev and many others) followed Basaev’s orders and relocated to northern Chechnya. Following their withdrawal from Grozny, and much like the rest of the Chechen units, the Nogais were reorganized and starting in 2000 were being referred to as a jamaat, instead of a battalion. While small in number and somewhat removed from the main theater of hostilities, the Nogai jamaat focused their attention on northern Chechnya and southern Stavropol where the presence of numerous Nogai settlements makes them undetectable by the Russian special services. This was seen clearly during one attempt by federal forces to surround several guerrillas from the Nogai jamaat in a village house, with the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs admitting that it was impossible to successfully conduct an operation when the entirety of a village was assisting the guerillas.

Such loyalty is a unique feature of the Nogai ethnic group, which is one of the “small” ethnicities of the Northern Caucasus and numbers only 70,000 strong. Most Nogais are related to each other and the notion of defending each other against external threats overrides all other considerations, with individual Nogais seeing themselves as obligated to help their ethnic group in any way possible.

The Nogais are one of the oldest Muslim ethnic groups in the region, with their Islamic affiliation going back centuries. The Soviet practice of discrediting Islam during the decades-long period of total atheism has taken its toll, however, and many Nogais have become nominal Muslims, with religiosity being confined to the older generations. It is unsurprising that the rebirth of Islam in the region has affected the Nogais just as much as the other ethnic groups. It was the Nogai youth who actively pursued the study of Islam and became the advocates of radicalism. This is also unsurprising given the overwhelmingly Sufi background of most of the neighboring peoples, a background that made Salafism particularly attractive after the dissolution of the USSR and that attracted many young men from a traditionally Sufi background.

Having lost so many of its members during this war, the Nogai jamaat has become quite professional, having completed training in the camp of Emir Khattab and having fought extensively in Grozny and its environs. Nonetheless, it was dangerous for them to remain in the highlands of Chechnya, since they were noticeably different in appearance from the Chechens (having Mongolian features) and so were unable to hide amongst the villagers of the region. This was probably the reason behind Shamil Basaev’s order to relocate north and lay the foundations for the resistance in that area.

While the authorities in Stavropol are concerned about the situation in the province, they are overwhelmingly focusing on those areas traditionally inhabited by the Nogai ethnic group. All mentions of “Wahhabist” groups in the province also refer to the Nogais and Karachais (closely related ethnicities that along with the Balkars and Kumyks belong to the same Turkic language group) (http://www.kavkazmemo.ru, December 15, 2005).

Turkey played a noticeable part in the spread of religious education due to its pan-Turkic foreign policy. Along with the Crimean Tatars, Karachais and Balkars, the Nogais were welcome guests in Turkey. The Kumyks are the only missing link in Ankara’s pan-Turkic policy, since for two centuries now they have seen their future tied to that of the Russian state, a view strongly advanced by the Kumyk intelligentsia and aristocracy.

The attacks that were organized in northern Chechnya and Dagestan are indisputably the work of the Nogai jamaat (these attacks were against local militia in 2005 and in 2006 and other places during the past several years that total no less than ten separate attacks). Having recovered from its previous significant losses, the jamaat has been reformed and is able to fulfill the goals set by the commanders of the Caucasus resistance movement. During a period of six months in 2006, a beat policeman and a businessman were killed, while the homes of those who criticized the jamaat were fired upon (http://www.neftekulmsk.ru, March 14).

The military dispatches mention the notable battle in the village of Tukui-Mekteb, which occurred on February 8-9, 2006. During the battle, federal forces were directed by Aleksandr Chekalin, the deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and included hundreds of fighters from the Nefterkum Brigade of the Ministry, as well as fighters from the FSB and the Attorney General’s office. Seven policemen, five guerrillas and seven local civilians were killed, with most jamaat members successfully withdrawing (http://www.grani.ru, February 10, 2006). On February 24, 2007, a similar battle took place in Kizliar, where four guerrillas were surrounded in a home and killed (Kommersant, #29 (3605), February 26).

The actual numbers of the jamaat are unlikely to exceed several dozen, but may reach 30-40 fighters, a notable number for such a small ethnic group. The jamaat is split into several smaller groups (three to five men each), that are determined by the place of residence. There are two such groups in Chechnya, three in Dagestan, two in Stavropol and one in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. An emir generally elected from among the “Chechen Nogais” (those that live in Chechnya) is the leader of the jamaat.

All of the above clearly shows that the Nogai jamaat not only exists, but that it also functions. Yet because of the geographic location that it occupies, it is far less likely to undertake serious action unless assisted by the jamaats of Chechnya, Dagestan and Karachai-Cherkessia. The Nogais prefer to work with other jamaats, coordinating their actions with resistance groups from the nearby regions.

It is true that the Nogai jamaat is currently in stasis, but it is by no means destroyed, despite the declarations made by the Russian politicians and military officials. At any moment, the fighters of the resistance movement can find help as well as a base for further operations among the members of the Nogai jamaat. The reasons for the continued existence of this group lie in Russia’s policies in the region, making further developments inescapable.

[MKSheppard]

Reading Wired.com's entry, I found them quoting a commentor who had visited Domodedovo:

I have traveled quite a bit from DMD — though not for quite some time. However, as far as I know, all of Moscow’s airports have metal detectors and bag scanners at the front doors. The last few years I’ve traveled through SVO, and they scan your bags and your person right at the entrance point.

Reports out of Moscow that I have seen indicate that the scanners and metal detectors were just turned off that day, with no one manning them. This is pretty common in Russian airports — if there’s no one to work the security at the front gate (which is not a security point required in the airlines’ contract with the airport, merely a voluntary safety effort on the part of the Russian state security services, from what I understand) they just don’t scan people.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, Domodedovo had security checkpoints at the entrance - like I said, my relatives went through it just a few days before said bombing occured. Accoriding to the investigation, they were not turned off - rather, there was a bypass way which no one cared to guard.

[Zaune]

I'm probably going to hell for this, but I laughed out loud at the prospect of suicide bomber detonating early due to spam.

You're not alone there:

If true, the SMS might be the only time that a wireless carrier’s SMS message has ever been useful.