Double suicide bombings kill 38 on Moscow subway

[Jolie Rouge]

Double suicide bombings kill 38 on Moscow subway
David Nowak, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago

MOSCOW – Female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 60, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there.

The blasts come six years after Islamic separatists from the southern Russian region carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to the capital, amid militants' warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.

Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing late last year on a passenger train en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Last month, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov warned Russians in an interview on a rebel-affiliated Web site that "the war is coming to their cities."

The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor agency, a symbol of power under Vladimir Putin.

About 45 minutes later, a second explosion hit the Park Kultury station, which is near the renowned Gorky Park. In both cases, the bombs were detonated as the trains pulled into the stations and the doors were opening.

"I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming," said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who was on a train on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.

"I saw a dead person for the first time in my life," said Valentin Popov, 19, who had just arrived at the station from the opposite direction.

Prime Minister Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war with Chechen separatists a decade ago, vowed Monday that "terrorists will be destroyed."

Moscow is unlikely to hit back at the rebels with massive firepower: The Kremlin has installed loyal leaders in the areas where the militants operate, making bombing campaigns of the kind used in the 1990s Chechen wars out of the question.

The Kremlin is already engaged in a huge escalation of its operations to smash the rebels, and it is difficult to see what more it could do.

The iconic Moscow subway system is the world's second-busiest after Tokyo's, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

Russian TV showed amateur video from inside the Lubyanka station of wounded and possibly dead victims sitting and lying on the floor. The train platform was filled with smoke. The LifeNews.ru site showed gruesome photos of dead passengers sprawled inside a mangled subway car and a bloody leg lying on a station platform.

Outside both stations, passengers flooded out, many of them crying and making frantic calls on their cell phones. The wounded were loaded into ambulances and helicopters, some with their heads wrapped in bloody bandages, as sirens wailed.

The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a subway station, killing 10 people. Responsibility for that blast was claimed by Chechen rebels.

A more devastating attack took place in February of that year, when a suicide bomber from the North Caucasus set off explosives during morning rush hour as it traveled between stations. More than 40 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

Russian police have killed several Islamic militant leaders in the North Caucasus recently, including one last week in the Kabardino-Balkariya region, which has raised fears of retaliatory strikes by the militants.

The militants receive moral and perhaps financial support from al-Qaida. Dozens of contributors to three Web sites affiliated with al-Qaida wrote comments in praise of Monday's attacks.

One site opened a special page to "receive congratulations" for the Chechen rebels who "started the dark tunnel attacks in the apostate countries," and all wished for God to accept the two sisters as martyrs.

"Don't forget Russia's crimes of genocide in the Caucasus and Chechnya," said one writer. "The battle has been shifted to the heart of Moscow," another wrote.

In a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov said body fragments of the two bombers pointed to a Caucasus connection. The bombers have not been identified and Bortnikov did not elaborate.

"We will continue the fight against terrorism unswervingly and to the end," Medvedev said.

Neither he nor Putin, who was on an official trip in Siberia, announced specific measures and it was not clear if Russia has new strategies to unleash in the Caucasus, where violent separatism has spread from Chechnya into neighboring republics.

Although the Russian army battered Chechen rebels in massive assaults a decade ago, the separatists continue to move through the region's mountains and forests with comparative ease and launch frequent small attacks.

New York's transit system beefed up security as a precaution following the Moscow bombings. A spokesman for New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Kevin Ortiz, said the agency has a "heightened security presence," but declined further comment.

The agency is in charge of New York City buses and subways, as well as suburban trains, and bridges and tunnels. In London and Madrid, two other cities that have suffered transit system terror attacks, officials said there were no immediate plans to tighten security.

At 4 p.m., the two Moscow subway stations reopened and dozens boarded the waiting trains.

"It's really terrifying," said Vasily Vlastinin, 16. "It's become dangerous to ride the metro, but I'll keep taking the metro. You have to get to school, to college, to work somehow."

Both stations had been scrubbed clean. Holes left by shrapnel in the granite were the only reminder of the day's tragic bombings.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_subway_blast

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama condemns 'heinous' subway bombings in Russia
Mon Mar 29, 7:04 am ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has condemned the rush hour bombings in the Moscow metro, offering his condolences to the Russian people.

In a statement issued by the White House early Monday, the president said the American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism and "heinous" terrorist attacks.

The blasts came about 30 minutes apart during the morning rush hour, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102.

The head of Russia's main security agency said a preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100329/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_russia_subway_blast_obama

[ElleGee]

There has been way too much of this suicide bombing stuff lately....

[Jolie Rouge]

Moscow in mourning, vows to avenge metro bombings
Alexander Osipovich – 2 hrs 17 mins ago

MOSCOW (AFP) – Moscow held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 38 victims of twin rush-hour suicide bombings on packed metro trains, as Russian leaders pledged to hunt down and wipe out those behind the attacks.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed those responsible for Monday's bombings would be "destroyed" as authorities pointed the finger at militants from the Northern Caucasus for the deadliest attack in the Russian capital for half a decade.

President Dmitry Medvedev, while visiting the site of one of the bombings to lay a wreath of red roses, pledged "we will find and wipe out" those behind the blasts, calling them "wild beasts".

The first explosion shortly before 8:00 am (0400 GMT) ripped through a train that had stopped in the Lubyanka station just below the headquarters of Russia's FSB security service, the successor to the Soviet KGB.

About 40 minutes later, a second explosion went off in a carriage of a train on the platform at the Park Kultury metro station, named after Moscow's iconic Gorky Park.

Officials said the attacks were carried out by women wearing belts packed with explosives, marking a return of the so-called "Black Widows" who terrorized Moscow a decade ago with a string of attacks.

"Body parts of two terrorists -- female suicide bombers -- were found at the scenes of the blasts," FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said in a televised meeting at the Kremlin.

"According to preliminary information, these people had links to places of residence in the Northern Caucasus," he added.

Bortnikov said the bombers' belts were packed with the explosive hexogen and metal shrapnel.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that foreign involvement in the attacks had not been ruled out.

"We all know very well that clandestine terrorists are very active on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in Canada at a Group of Eight ministers' meeting.

"We know that several attacks have been prepared there, to be carried out not only in Afghanistan, but also in other countries. Sometimes, these journeys go as far as the (Russian) Caucasus."

Russian police are searching for two women who accompanied the suicide bombers, plus a man who may also have been an accomplice, after identifying them and the bombers through surveillance footage, Interfax reported citing a security source. Related article: 'Black Widows' snare Russia in new web of fear

Emergency officials said the death toll had reached 38, not including the bombers. Another 64 people were wounded, including a woman from the Philippines and two women from Malaysia who were released from hospital after treatment.

Putin -- who cut short a visit to Siberia to return to Moscow -- visited some of those injured in a central Moscow hospital on Monday evening.

He earlier warned that "law enforcement agencies will do everything to find and punish the criminals... The terrorists will be destroyed."

Western leaders offered their condolences to Russia, and US President Barack Obama pledged Washington would "help bring to justice those who undertook this attack" while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called trrrorism a "common enemy". Related article: West pledges help after 'hateful' Moscow attacks

"Whether you are in a Moscow subway or a London subway or a train in Madrid or an office building in New York, we face the same enemy," Clinton said in an interview with the Canadian network CTV.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the so-called "Caucasus Emirate" group led by Chechen militant Doku Umarov has repeatedly warned in recent months it was planning to strike the capital.

Umarov's group claimed responsibility for last November's bombing of a passenger train that killed 28 people.

Lubyanka Square is home to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the Soviet KGB secret police, and still housed in the notorious building where dissidents were interrogated and shot in Joseph Stalin's purges.

The Moscow metro continued working despite the disaster, with only one line temporarily shut down, and by the end of the day Lubyanka station had reopened to passengers with only minimal damage to its marble walls.

The Moscow city government declared Tuesday would be a day of mourning.

Monday's explosions were the deadliest suicide attacks in Moscow since 2004 when the bombing of a metro train killed 41, part of a string of attacks carried out by Chechen militants. Related article: Tears and rage as bombers strike heart of Russia

Chechnya has seen rising violence in recent months as pro-Kremlin regional authorities seek to clamp down on an Islamist insurgency that has also spread to the neighbouring majority-Muslim regions of Ingushetia and Dagestan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/russiaattacks


TERRIBLE !! And, what pray tell, did all that SENSELESS violence and death ACCOMPLISH, besides NOTHING!?!? I think all those Suicide Bombers are real COWARDS ! Violence and Murder are NEVER the ANSWER.


Coward? It always amazes me that people can call these maniacs, "cowards." They certainly are not and until u dopes stop listening to the buzz words spewed by lying politicians, terrorists will continue to hit everyone. A coward runs away from the field of battle. These people do the opposite. Buy a dictionary and look the word up and start dealing with reality.


If this happened here Barack Husseing Obama would be saying let's not jump to any conclusions as to whether this was muslim terrorism or not.

Next when he captured the purpotraters he'd read them their Miranda Rights, give them a cushy mattress, and an ACLU lawyer with a $200 million dollar civil court trial ala the 9/11 masterminds.

But don't worry Democrats are back in the White House and they're already rounding up all of those extremely dangerous Christians. Great isn't that we're wasting incredibly valuable FBI resources to arrest people that just want to read the Bible and be left alone.

Thanks God Barry is all over these groups or they might do something really terrible like open a food bank or a soup kitchen for the poor!

Is this what 60 million Americans voted for... really?


Sadly,innocent people enroute to their jobs were killed and maimed today in Moscow. The aftermath not only led to a dead and wounded count, but subsequently there have already been incidents of Russian mobs beating and injuring any people with skin complexions indigenous to those of the Caucasus Region. This not only included Chechens, Ossetians, and Inguishetians (mostly Muslim), but also Christian Caucasians who resemble Muslim Caucasians. The Beslan school massacre is never forgotten by Russian people. But, Russia continues to be an enigma. On one hand, it still has the contention of Islamic nationalists in the Caucasus Region (three states/provinces) who will and do endorse terror attacks, and on the other hand Russia builds a nuclear reactor at Beshehr, Iran. Isn't Iran the most active Islamic terrorist state? I suggest that it is. It's been at war with Christendom's modernity, and covets nuclear bomb technology. The Russians promised to have the Beshehr reactor finished in Summer 2010. I believe that, if it is a legitimate reactor for peaceful purpuses, it wouldn't be built over 100 feet underground. Certainly, the Russians must realize that. So, while they say they strive to rid their own country of Muslim extremists, Russia enables the Iranian extremist regime which makes no bones about its mission to be the center of a world caliphate. Featured in the Iranian activity are dead Americans. We know what Moscow is doing, but what does Washington, DC think it's doing?


Fools. The Russians will pursue and slaughter these vermin and the purveyors of this type of cowardice! The Russian media won't make out their warriors to be the 'bad' people like the cowards in the US media do to our warriors! The Russians also won't give a SH$T what the 'world media' has to say about them in their pursuit of terrorists! Hide in a mosque? Russians will flatten it! NO STUPID HAND TYING OVERREACHING RULES OF ENGAGEMENT LIKE OUR TROOPS MUST FACE AND THEN BE PROSECUTED BY THE SAME GOVERNMENT THAT SENT TO WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Dumb terrorists did it now....

[Jolie Rouge]

Moscow Bombings: Islamist Rebels Behind Deadly Blasts?
Simon Shuster / Moscow – Tue Mar 30, 2:00 am ET

Russia was again the scene of grisly carnage as two suicide blasts ripped through the packed carriages of separate trains on Moscow's metro during the morning commute on Monday, killing at least 38 people and injuring dozens of others. Judging in part by the severed remains of the two female attackers, Russian officials blamed the coordinated bombings on homegrown Islamist rebels, raising fears that the militants' vow to escalate their insurgency in the troubled Caucasus region had caused violence to spread to the Russian heartland for the second time in four months.


Pointing to a possible motivation behind the attacks was the fact that one of the bombers struck just beneath the headquarters of the FSB, Russia's secret police. Known as the KGB before the fall of the Soviet Union, the agency's harsh security tactics in the isolated Caucasus Mountains have incensed the local separatists who have been fighting for years to turn parts of the country into an Islamic caliphate governed by strict Shari'a law. (See pictures of the suicide bombings in Moscow.)


Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB agent who later became head of the FSB, has overseen several brutal campaigns against the Islamic separatists, starting with the second Chechen war in 1999 that established his popularity in Russia as an unflinching leader. On Monday, he warned of a new crackdown against those responsible for the bombings. "I am certain that law-enforcement agencies will do everything to find the criminals and bring them to justice. The terrorists will be destroyed," Putin said in televised remarks. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, meanwhile, ordered police to tighten security across the country and urged people to stay calm. "It's absolutely clear that these kinds of acts are well-planned and intended to cause mass shock, to destabilize the country and the society," Medvedev said.


The 1999 Chechen war was precipitated by a series of deadly apartment bombings in Russian cities, including Moscow, and human-rights activists have warned that new terrorist attacks could lead to more military campaigns in Chechnya or the other violence-wracked parts of the North Caucasus - Ingushetia and Dagestan. The insurgents' leader, a warlord named Doku Umarov, renewed his pledge last month to bring "holy war" to Russia's cities and industrial centers in an effort to carve out an Islamic state. "Blood will no longer be limited to our cities and towns. The war is coming to their cities," Umarov said in an interview posted Feb. 14 on the separatist website www.kavkazcenter.com. "If the Russians think this war is being waged on television screens, somewhere in the far-off Caucasus ... then God willing, we are about to show them that this war is coming to their homes." The government has faced criticism for failing to heed his threats, even after he took responsibility for the bombing of a train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg in November that killed 27 people. (See a TIME story on the 2004 subway bombing in Moscow.)


Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the General Prosecutor's Office, said a preliminary investigation indicated that two female bombers carried out Monday's attack. "The bombs seem to have been attached at waist-level and consisted of between one and two kilograms of TNT, which was powerful and had been packed with shrapnel," he told reporters gathered at Lubyanka Square, home of the FSB. Eyewitnesses described stunned victims fleeing the Lubyanka station moments after one of the attackers struck there at 8 a.m., some with their clothes covered in blood. "Others were leaning on each other and staggering, and another man kept crossing himself as he walked by, thanking God he was alive," says Lyudmila Samokatova, a newspaper vender on Lubyanka Square. In the tunnels, there was panic. "There were definitely hundreds of us packed in there, and nobody was moving. People started saying there could be a third explosion, and things got frantic," says Natalia Kuznetsova, a theater ticket vendor near Lubyanka Square who was on another train at the time of the attacks. By early afternoon, emergency workers had begun carrying the dead out of the station in black bags and taking them to the morgue.


The site of the second attack, which came within 40 minutes of the first, was the Park Kultury metro station, a few miles southwest of Lubyanka Square. The entryway to the station was filled on Monday morning with the smell of char rising up from the deep tunnels. An ambulance driver outside the station said the death toll could be expected to rise, as hospitals were filling up with the wounded and the work of recovering the dead was still under way. "We're taking [the injured] wherever we can, all over the place. I've heard calls go out for drop-offs to about a dozen hospitals," he says, declining to give his name as he was not authorized to speak to the press. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)


At Sklifosovsky Hospital, one of Moscow's largest, a grim vigil began in the late morning as roughly a dozen people lined up to ask about missing family members. Igor Yegorov was there to look for his wife. "She went to work as usual this morning, and I can't reach her. Hopefully it's just that the cell-phone networks are down. But I don't know," he says, pale and shaking as he waited to check the hospital list. By late afternoon, the flow of ambulances to the hospital had stopped, and service had been restored to the rest of the metro system, which was not damaged in the blasts. (See "The Man Behind Russia's Deadly Train Blast.")


Whether the attack was part of the Islamic insurgency in the Caucasus or not, one thing is clear: terrorist groups are now capable of carrying out dramatic attacks in the heart of the capital. Putin and Medvedev will now face public pressure to wipe out the rebel groups for good, and it may be hard for them to resist the temptation to boost their approval ratings by using the harshest means available to do so.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100330/wl_time/08599197611700;_ylt=AgEVy80jTnsyNA2FwTQwkvGs0NUE;_ ylu=X3oDMTNndjE1bG1qBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDAzMzAvMD g1OTkxOTc2MTE3MDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMy BHBvcwM4BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BH NsawNtb3Njb3dib21iaW4-

[Jolie Rouge]

Russia says teacher was 2nd subway suicide bomber
Mansur Mirovalev, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 46 mins ago


http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20100402/capt.2be1f07ea2634d219e18e0a927c7b6ea-2be1f07ea2634d219e18e0a927c7b6ea-0.jpg?x=400&y=294&q=85&sig=iDX5Gy.oK3SoD7M9wab.gg--

This undated picture provided Friday, April 2, 2010 by the Russian news agency NewsTeam, is claimed by the Russian Kommersant newspaper to show Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, left, and her husband Islamist rebel Umalat Magomedov. Russian newspaper Kommersant said Friday that one of the Moscow subway suicide bombers was Abdurakhmanova, the 17-year-old widow of Magomedov, an Islamist rebel from the North Caucasus killed by Russian government forces in December, 2009. The March 29 subway bombings in Moscow killed 39 people.
(AP Photo/NewsTeam)

MOSCOW – Investigators confirmed Tuesday that one of the two suicide bombings on Moscow's subway last week was carried out by a 28-year-old teacher from the North Caucasus whose father recognized a photograph of her detached head.

"I did recognize my daughter in the picture," Maryam Sharipova's father, Rasul Magomedov, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It was really hard when they put your daughter's head in front of you."

The two March 29 bombings, which killed 40 people and wounded 121 during the morning rush hour, were the first suicide attacks in the capital in six years. They served as a stark reminder of the Islamic insurgency raging in predominantly Muslim provinces of the North Caucasus, including Dagestan, where both bombers were from.

The Federal Security Service said evidence showed that Sharipova, a university-educated computer science teacher, was one of the bombers. The other had been identified earlier as Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, the 17-year-old widow of an Islamic militant slain by government forces.

The security service said Sharipova was believed to have been the wife of an Islamic militant.

Her father said local security officers told him that several weeks ago, but he had believed his daughter when she said she would never marry without his consent.

"It's absolute nonsense," Magomedov said, speaking by telephone from Dagestan. "She was always at school or at home. If there is a husband, his wife should be with him."

Sharipova, an only daughter, taught at the same school as her parents and lived with them in their home village, Balakhani. Her father described her as "patient and well educated."

He said she was religious but never expressed any radical beliefs or gave any indication she was involved with militants.

"I don't believe what has happened. It's too hard," Magomedov said. "She never believed in sects, and I don't, and our village has been Muslim for ages. We never had any apostates, and even in Soviet times there was a working mosque."

A Chechen militant leader, Doku Umarov, claimed responsibility for the Moscow attacks, which he said were retaliation for the killing of civilians by security forces.

Umarov, a veteran of the two separatist wars in Chechnya, is now seeking to create an Islamic state across the region.

Human rights groups accuse security forces and police in the North Caucasus of fueling the insurgency through extrajudicial killings, abductions and abuses.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100406/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_bombings;_ylt=AjvFWnx7BJhiiFbhesScSuoUew gF;_ylu=X3oDMTM3cmozajU2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA2L2 V1X3J1c3NpYV9ib21iaW5ncwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRj cG9zAzYEcG9zAzYEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNydX NzaWFzYXlzdGU-


Please remember, Islam is the Religion of Peace....

[Jolie Rouge]

'Black Widows' Recruited for Terrorism in Russia
Simon Shuster / Moscow – 32 mins ago

One photograph has transformed the way many Russians look at terrorism.

It shows one of the two women who allegedly bombed the Moscow subway: a cherubic teenager smirking as she waves a pistol in the air. The image of the stereotypical jihadi - the masked or bearded zealot holding a Kalashnikov or wearing an explosive vest - suddenly morphed into a more ambivalent yet still terrifying menace.

Experts say this was exactly the aim of the groups that supposedly recruited Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, who, along with Maryam Sharipova, attacked two Metro stations in Moscow. Around the world, organizations like al-Qaeda are realizing that women can be far more effective than men at penetrating security checkpoints, making their attacks deeper and more lethal. Almost as important, a female face makes it harder to dismiss radical Islamism as simply evil. "We all have mothers. We all tend to idealize women as nonviolent," says Anne Speckhard, who chairs a NATO expert group on the psychological and social aspects of terrorism. "When they commit acts of terror, people start asking themselves, 'What would make a woman go there and do that?' This is already a huge propaganda victory." Speckhard adds, "If you put a woman into the role of carrying out violence - if you make her look like she's bereaved, she's suffering - you suddenly get your message across much more effectively." (After the Moscow bombings, a new cycle of retaliation?)


This applies in particular to the terrorists known in Russia as the Black Widows, a name that plays on their alleged desire to avenge the deaths of their husbands (or other relatives) at the hands of Russian security forces working in the North Caucasus. In recent years, they have taken part in several vicious attacks in Moscow, including the bombings of two passenger planes in 2004 that killed 89 people. Abdurakhmanova, named by police as one of the two suicide bombers who struck the Moscow subway system on March 29, killing at least 40 people, seems to fit the mold. Her husband was a leading militant in the Russian region of Dagestan and was killed in a shoot-out with police on New Year's Eve. Sharipova, a schoolteacher, was also married to a militant Islamist in Dagestan. (See pictures of the deadly subway bombings in Moscow.)


Yet it was by no means a simple act of revenge, say Speckhard and other experts, insisting it is wrong to imagine the Black Widows as loyal widows seeking justice. (Sharipova's husband is believed to still be alive.) The women are in reality the products of a sophisticated process of indoctrination with deep roots in the North Caucasus, where a less conservative form of Islam has meant insurgents have few qualms about using women in their attacks. "The women who take part in terrorism do it not out of their own desire or willingness but because they are manipulated. They are given no other choice," says Yulia Yuzik, who has interviewed scores of Black Widows and their relatives in the Caucasus for her book Nevesty Allakhy (Brides of Allah).


Yuzik says the recruitment process usually begins when a loved one collaborates with insurgents and then gets killed or persecuted by Russian forces. The family is often ostracized by other members of their community, who are desperate to avoid persecution themselves, Yuzik says. "The community that welcomes you after that is the Islamist one. There you find self-respect. You are called a sister. You go to pray with them, socialize with them, and you integrate into these groups based around Islam. That in itself serves as a kind of counterforce to the security regime, a way of expressing grief and frustration."


Extremists within the community, however, can then begin to turn these emotions to the ends of terrorism, usually after an order comes down from insurgents in the mountains to prepare a suicide bomber. There are dozens of these Black Widows in the making at any given time, Yuzik says, so the Moscow subway bombings cannot simply be connected to the death of Abdurakhmanova's husband. Rather, she happened to be at the right point in the process of indoctrination when the order came down. "Once the Islamist community begins insisting you martyr yourself, they do not let up. They will pursue you forever, and you have nowhere else to go. That is the trap."


Women in such circumstances, says Speckhard, tend to be recruited because they are in search of "psychological first aid." Working most often over the Internet, the recruiters play the role of a father to women left vulnerable by abuse or other trauma. "To an extent it does help them. It's like a drug. It's short-lived. It gives you relief, but it's not a solution. And just like a drug addiction, it often ends tragically," says Speckhard, who has interviewed more than 300 perpetrators of terrorism, their victims and their loved ones for her book Talking to Terrorists.


The ease of finding such women over the Internet, and their usefulness to terrorist groups, suggest that the role of women in jihadist movements will continue to grow. Even ultraconservative groups like al-Qaeda, which had long avoided recruiting women, have come around to the tactic, says Mia Bloom, author of Bombshell: Women and Terror. In Russia the problem is particularly acute, as more than 50% of the country's suicide attacks have been committed by women, compared with about 30% globally. Far more than those of male bombers, their attacks also speed the flow of new recruits and money into the terrorist organizations. "The women come forward and shame the men into participating," says Bloom. "They appeal to masculinity, to the manly urge to protect women, and that fills up their ranks and their coffers."


All of this presents a daunting set of challenges for law enforcement. More heavy-handed efforts to clamp down on them, like the ones being employed by Russia in the North Caucasus, now seem to be doing more harm than good, by multiplying the sense of mourning and hurt that then become potential hooks for recruiters. Any solution must now reckon with the fact that the war on terrorism has become more than a matter to be dealt with by force.

[Jolie Rouge]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599197817800;_ylt=AvF7GJOoT9A2yc6HjPE3ll4Z.3QA;_ ylu=X3oDMTM1MWlkZzNmBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDA0MDcvMD g1OTkxOTc4MTc4MDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM1 BHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDYmxhY2t3aW Rvd3Ny


WHY BLAME ISLAM?

Individuals, not religions, carry out inhuman acts!

Islam is a religion of peace, accepted and practiced by more than 1.25 billion people worldwide. It is the fastest-growing religion in the world, and if it was what some critics claim, why should the people from all walks of life from around the world keep embracing Islam? Where is the sword now?

In Islam, a person has the right to defend himself, his family, his country or his neighbor(s), which justifies the resistance being offered by the people of Afghanistan , Bosnia , Chechnya , Iraq , Kashmir and Palestine , to attacks on their soils by the so-called liberators, who are actually the occupiers.

The Holy Qur’an clearly states that if a person saves one life, it’s as if he saved humanity, and if a person kills one human being, it’s as if he killed humanity.

What is happening in the enslaved Muslim countries is a natural reaction to occupation, bombings, killing and terrorizing of innocent civilians (children, old men and women), rapes, in addition to looting of resources, national antiques and artifacts, above all destruction of property by the occupiers.

Terror breeds terror

We assure those who bash Islam that if there was no occupation in this world by foreign invaders, there would be no resistance – the so-called terror.

We would like those who criticize Islam to explain the following acts committed by the Christians on Jews, other Christians and Muslims alike, throughout history:

- Hundreds of thousands of Muslim men, women and children killed by the crusaders, who were Christians.

- Inquisition of Jews and Muslims from Spain by Queen Isabella, a Christian.

- Millions of people killed by the European and American Christians during the two world wars.

- Atrocities committed on millions of Jews and Christians by Adolph Hitler, a professed Christian.

- Hundreds of thousands of Christians killed every year by the Irish Christians, including the British and the IRA, both Catholics and Protestants, during the past few centuries.

Why are they not blamed to be “Christian Terrorists?”

Both of them believe in Jesus Christ, who told them to turn the other cheek, and both of them believe in the same Lord, Who commanded that “Thou shall not kill.” Period.

- Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , was a Catholic. Are all Catholics terrorists?

Last but not least, the bombings, killings, rapings and lynchings of both American Indians and black slaves (Afro-Americans) during the past 200 years in the United States .

What about them?

Will those filled with hate for Islam blame Christianity for the above inhuman acts by Christians in various parts of the world since its inception? If not, then why are they blaming the religion of Islam for what is a natural reaction to occupation of Muslim countries by foreign invaders?

Most importantly, these folks should know that the three great Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – have one common basis, and that is one God Almighty.
“All men (and women) are created equal, and we all are one nation under Almighty God,” is a statement according to the Holy Qur’an and is very well elucidated in the U.S. Constitution.

Lastly, yet importantly, as brothers in humanity, we recommend those filled with hate get an education in the history of Islam and Muslims, before they dare to write nasty letters full of personal, ingrain hate and vendetta.


As soon as you can explain why Shia's kill Shi'ites (either way) or who or what foreign entity was inhabiting Saudi when 15 of them attacked America. Exactly, who was a threat to the Palestinians that boarded the Achille Lauro and murdered a man in a wheelchair - exactly what was the foreign occupation problem on a cruise ship! While most your list is several hundred years old, mine is more current.


I'm going to take a nice big dump on the Koran. Then I'm going to draw a picture of Allah getting gang raped by Satan's minions. ( as he deserves) Then I'm going to draw a picture of Mohammid the pedophile prophet) molesting little girls with a bomb in his rag hat. Let The Fatwahs begin! I guess doing that wouldn't be 'cuturally sensitive would it? Even South Park wimped out about Allah and the pedophile prophet. On the other hand Jesus and the Jews get no mercy. So even the western world censures itself so the so called 'Religion of Peace' Doesn't go amuck like the violednt animals that they are -- A Danish cartoonist's rendering the Islamic faith for what it is -- is still under death threats. Where again does the religion of peace start? I just hope we have enough bombs to martyr them all. Gonna be tough to get them all 72 virgins but hey that is Allah's prob.


do you see athiests blowing themselves up in the name of science?

The fact remains that 93% ( and increasing ) of world-wide terrorist attacks are commited by self-professed radical fanatical Muslims.