4GWAR

HOMELAND SECURITY: Dozens Killed in Moscow Airport Bombing (Update Jan. 25)

January 24, 2011 at 8:56 pm Leave a comment

Welcome to the Club

Photo: Domodedovo Moscow Airport

In the wake of a terrorist bombing at Moscow’s busiest airport Monday (Jan. 24) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says terrorism is the most serious threat facing that country, according to the BBC.

He and other Russian leaders vowed to hunt down those responsible for the blast that killed at least 35 people and injured more than 100 at Domodedovo Airport. They also vowed to clean house because of apparent security and intelligence lapses causing little or no action to prevent a “well-prepared attack.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but most observers suspect Islamist militants from the turbulent North Caucasus region on Russia’s southern border were behind it.

In the recent past, militants from there have taken credit — or been blamed — for other bombing attacks on public transportation. There was the November 2009 attack on a St. Petersburg-bound high speed train that killed 28 and two Moscow subway attacks that left 40 dead last March. Other European cities have also seen attacks on rail transportation – including Madrid, Spain on March 11, 2004 and London, England in July 2005.

But this latest attack — if it is the work of militants from the Caucasus — may mean a shift in targets from trains and subways back to air transport and foreigners as well as Russians.

Officials say the massive explosion was a suicide bombing at the crowded international arrivals area of the airport. An Israeli airport security expert, Rafi Ron, tells the Washington Post that the security perimeter of most airport international arrivals areas is a vulnerable target for terrorists.

Blame Game

Medvedev accused airport officials of allowing “pure anarchy” to reign at Domodedovo, but airport authorities say they met all the requirements of airport security.

And some politicians and pundits have suggested that maybe Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s government should be held responsible for the security and intelligence failure, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Putin, who has vowed a get tough policy, has seen numerous attacks on Russian soil  during his time as prime minister and two terms as Russia’s president. Following several bombings and other attacks on Russian military and civilian areas in the late 1990s,  Moscow launched a massive invasion, followed by a brutal counter insurgency, in the rebellious Chechnya region.

Wikipedia

That led to a series of terrorist incidents. In addition to the 2004 downing of two airliners that killed more than 100, there was the government’s muddled response to a mass hostage incident, also in 2004, in Beslan, that led to the deaths of 330 people — including more than 100 children — in the rescue attempt by Russian security forces. There was also the inept rescue of hostages held in a Moscow theater by Chechin nationalists in 2002. More than 120 people died, many of them hostages killed by a sleeping agent pumped into the building by  authorities to subdue the terrorists.

Monday’s bombing wasn’t the first time Domodedovo airport was involved in a terrorist situation. The two women who brought down separate Tupelov airlinersin 2004 boarded the planes at Domodedovo. Russian authorities have maintained the women detonated “suicide belts” hidden under their clothes. The belts contained little or no metal, so they went undetected, Russian officials said. That incident prompted Homeland Security officials in the U.S. and elsewhere to seek technologies that could screen for explosives concealed on a person’s body. The quest intensified after a 2006 plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners using liquid explosives was uncovered in London. More urgency to find the right mix of technology and surveillance techniques followed  in the wake of an attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit by a man with explosives hidden in his underwear.

Entry filed under: BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), Homeland Security, International Crime, News Developments. Tags: air passenger screening, airport security, counter terrorism, Homeland Security, International Crime, London subway bombing, Madrid train bombing, Russia.