Moscow Airport Terror Attack

[Jolie Rouge]

Deadly Silence: Russia's Top Cops Stay Strangely Silent on the Airport Attack
By Simon Shuster / Moscow – 1 hr 2 mins ago

It was a hell of a time for Russia's security chiefs to play truant. On Monday night, when President Dmitri Medvedev called an emergency meeting to deal with that evening's terrorist attack at Moscow's largest airport, the two officials responsible for preventing such crimes stayed away, and now seem to have ducked out of sight entirely. Having laid most of the blame on lax security at the airport, Medvedev now seems to be shielding Russia's top cops from the nation's most urgent question: Why didn't anyone stop this?

That is not the way things have gone after previous attacks, including the one in March, when two suicide bombers killed 40 people in an attack on the Moscow subway. On the day of those bombings, Medvedev also called a meeting of senior officials. Eight showed up, and the first one Medvedev called on for an explanation was Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia's security service, the FSB, which handles all anti-terror operations. In minute detail, Bortnikov described the bombing, pointed to possible motives and vowed that his agency would do everything in its power to prevent it from happening again.

But after the attack on Monday, as rescue workers were clearing the bodies of the blast's 35 victims and treating scores of wounded outside an airport terminal spattered with blood and severed limbs, only three officials arrived to take instructions from the commander in chief: the transport minister, the general prosecutor and the country's top sleuth.

The main tip Medvedev gave them was to look into the security protocols that had been neglected, a prelude to his stunning announcement on Tuesday that officials at Domodedovo airport were most at fault for the explosion. "To carry or drive that much explosive material [into the airport] takes some effort," Medvedev told the Vedomosti daily. "The ones who have to answer for this are the decision-makers at the company and the management of the airport itself."

To anyone who has been to Domodedovo airport, this statement seems baffling. The arrivals hall where the blast occurred is open to the public, as are the arrivals areas of many airports around the world. On Tuesday, the airport pointed this out in a statement to the press, adding that Interior Ministry police are the ones responsible for securing that part of the terminal. But later in the day, Medvedev reiterated that the airport must be investigated, "without simply pushing all the responsibility on the police."

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen. As of Tuesday evening, the only mention of the blast on his ministry's website is a notice saying that patrolmen from the city of Kaluga had donated blood to the victims. The FSB website is even more tone deaf. The headline items include the announcement of a literature contest about Russian spies and a statement that in the traditional home of Russia's terrorist insurgencies, the North Caucasus region, "the conditions were created for stabilization" in 2010.

Asked why Bortnikov had not commented on the blast or attended Medvedev's meeting on Monday, an FSB spokesman tells TIME: "Really, I have no idea. You'd have to ask him, and he's not available." Repeated calls to the Interior Ministry went unanswered. But the ministry's press service did take the time to dismiss the airport's claims of innocence. "It's not for them to decide. We have investigative bodies. They are already looking into it, and they will figure it out," spokesman Oleg Yelnikov told reporters.

As this petty passing of the buck continued on Tuesday, Russian lawmakers began clamoring for answers, with two opposition parties in parliament saying they want to hear from Interior Minister Nurgaliev right away. Oleg Morozov, a senior parliamentarian from the ruling United Russia party, suggested this might be arranged during the chamber's next "government hour" - which is scheduled for April.

Russia's security chiefs have now stuck their heads so firmly into the sand that even veterans of the Soviet secret police are calling for more transparency. "I don't know how they're going to share the responsibility between the FSB and the Interior Ministry, but they're going to have to," Mikhail Lyubimov, a 20-year veteran of the KGB, tells TIME. "We don't know what intelligence opportunities were missed. All we know so far is the tip of the iceberg, so we just have to hope that they will explain the rest of the story. Otherwise, what are they good for?"

Judging by reports of their string of intelligence fumbles over the past week, it seems the security services weren't good for much in the lead-up to Monday's attack. Russian media, including the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, has quoted various police sources as saying they were warned a week in advance that a terrorist attack could hit Domodedovo airport. A police sweep of the Moscow suburb of Zelenograd then failed to net any suspects. On Monday night, an airport security source even told Life News that they had been warned of the bombing's exact location - the arrivals hall near the customs checkpoint - but a lack of manpower meant they didn't take any special precautions.

In the face of this drumbeat of unheeded tips and alarms, the failure of the police to explain themselves shows not only a lack of accountability but an outright disdain for the Russian public, says Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian security services. "A key duty of any public servant is to reassure the people," he says. "But our system is built in such a way that the security chiefs are above reproach, and do not need to answer to anyone."

As an example, Soldatov points to the fact that when Medvedev finally met with the FSB on Tuesday, in an unprecedented move, he went to them to give his assessment of the attack. The FSB did not go to him. As of Tuesday evening, its director had yet to comment on his agency's apparent slip-ups.

For many of the Russians now losing faith in the people meant to protect them, this silence is no kind of comfort.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2011012...08599204429400

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[Jolie Rouge]

Putin vows revenge for suicide bombing
Thomas Grove And Steve Gutterman – 1 hr 52 mins ago

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed revenge on Tuesday for a suicide bombing that killed at least 35 people at Russia's busiest airport and underscored the Kremlin's failure to stem a rising tide of attacks.

Talking tough a day after the bombing, Russia's leaders ordered security services to root out the culprits behind the attack, which bore hallmarks of militants fighting for an Islamist state along Russia's southern flank. "This was an abominable crime in both its senselessness and its cruelty," Putin told a meeting of ministers in Moscow. "I do not doubt that this crime will be solved and that retribution is inevitable."

President Dmitry Medvedev criticized law enforcement agencies and airport managers over the attack at the international arrivals hall at Domodedovo, a major international gateway to Russia, which killed at least eight foreigners. "Everything must be done to find, expose and bring the bandits who committed this crime to court -- and the nests of these bandits, however deep they have dug in, must be liquidated," he told Federal Security Service (FSB) leaders, who are in charge of coordinating Russia's fight against terrorism.

The bombing came just days before Medvedev is due to pitch Russia to investors and corporate leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Medvedev has delayed his departure for Davos, where he had planned to deliver the keynote speech opening the forum. Russia's Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said 49 people remained in serious or very serious condition in hospital.

At Moscow's Vishnevsky Surgery Institute, surgeon Sergei Sapelkin told Reuters three victims were in critical condition with severe burns or internal organs damaged by shrapnel from a bomb authorities said was packed with scrap metal.

The U.N. Security Council held a minute of silence on Tuesday in honor of the victims.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Medvedev on the phone, expressing condolences and "his strong condemnation of this outrageous attack on innocent civilians," the White House said. Obama also pledged to work with Russia to combat terrorism.

GROWING ISLAMIST INSURGENCY

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing yet, but Russia has been grappling with a growing Islamist insurgency in mainly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus. Rebels from the region have threatened attacks against cities and economic targets in the run-up to a parliamentary election this December and a 2012 presidential poll in which Putin is expected to return to the Kremlin or back his protege Medvedev for a second term.

Russian financial markets, used to bombings and hostage dramas over the past 12 years, showed little reaction. The benchmark ruble-denominated MICEX share index closed down 0.26 percent. The ruble was nearly unchanged from Monday. "Terrorism remains the main threat to the security of our state, the main threat to Russia, to all our citizens," Medvedev said. He said terrorist attacks increased last year, calling it "the most serious signal" for law enforcement. "It is clear that there is a systemic failure to provide security for people" at Domodedovo, said Medvedev.

He told the FSB to ensure proper security at upcoming international events including the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, on the edge of the North Caucasus.

Medvedev also ordered the Interior Ministry to recommend transport security officials for dismissal and said authorities found culpable would be held responsible.

Both Putin and Medvedev donned white coats and stood at victims' bedsides in separate visits shown on state television.

Putin, the dominant partner in Russia's 'tandem' leadership, built his tough reputation by launching a war in late 1999 to crush a rebel government in Chechnya, a North Caucasus province.

That campaign achieved its immediate aim but insurgency has spread to neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan and spawned persistent attacks beyond the North Caucasus, despite Kremlin vows to crush insurgents and nurture the region with subsidies.

Government critics warned that tough rhetoric will do little to stop attacks by militants in an insurgency they say is aggravated by heavy-handed law enforcement.

FOREIGN VICTIMS

The choice of Domodedovo international arrivals area suggested the attackers wanted to make an impact beyond Russia.

An investigator cited by news agency Itar-Tass said the bomber appeared to have been a heavily built man aged 30 to 40. Other reports pointed to a female bomber or two attackers.

An Emergencies Ministry list of the dead included eight foreigners: two Britons, a German and citizens of Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Colleagues said the Ukrainian was Anna Yablonskaya, 29, a playwright who was traveling to Moscow to receive an award.

Britains Foreign Office said one Briton was confirmed dead.

The spread of violence from the North Caucasus, where it is fed by corruption, poverty, clan rivalries and religious radicalism, fans Russian nationalist militancy in the heartland.

Tensions between ethnic Russians and the 20 million Muslims who make up one-seventh of Russia's population flared dramatically last month when Russian nationalists attacked passersby of non-Slavic appearance, many of them from the North Caucasus, in central Moscow -- just steps from the Kremlin.

On Tuesday police officers boosted their presence around railway stations and airports, carrying out spot checks of people who looked as though they could be from the Caucasus.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110125/...V0aW52b3dzcmV2