Video: Suicide bombing in Moscow
Here's eyewitness video of the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. At least 31 people were killed in the blast.Let's go to the videotape.
The blast happened in an arrivals hall around 4:32 pm Moscow time (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
In televised remarks, the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said: “At Domodedovo an explosion has occurred, and according to preliminary information it was a terrorist attack. There are dead and there are wounded.”Here's an English language Russian television report from about an hour after the blast. Let's go to the videotape.
He admonished officials for their failure to prevent the attack, and ordered the police to boost security at all airports and on public transportation. Mr. Medvedev also said he was delaying his departure for the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which begins this week.
International arrivals were being diverted to nearby airports, according to local news media reports.
The airport, southeast of the capital, is Russia’s largest airline hub, with more than 20 million passengers passing through last year.
If investigators find that the explosion was the result of terrorism, it would be the first such attack to hit Moscow since March, when two suicide bombers detonated explosives on the city’s subway during rush hour. More than 40 people were killed in that attack, which was traced to two women from Dagestan who had ridden buses into the capital.
The rebel leader Doku Umarov took responsibility for the March attack. In 2009, Mr. Umarov revived a suicide battalion linked to the most notorious attacks of the last decade. In a video apparently made hours after the blast, Mr. Umarov said, “The war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin.”
In August 2004, two Chechen suicide bombers boarded separate planes at Domodedovo airport before killing themselves and 88 others in midair. The attack exposed holes in security at the airport: the two bombers, both women, had been detained shortly before boarding, but were released by a police supervisor. The authorities have since worked to improve procedures at Domodedovo.
Monday’s explosion in Moscow pointed to the continuing fascination with air travel for militants, as well as the difficulty of carrying out an attack aboard a jet, said Stephen A. Baker, a former official with the Department of Homeland Security. “They’d like to be bombing planes and they can’t, so they’re bombing airports,” he said, adding that the attack “validates the focus that the U.S. has had on security at airports.”
I'm sure that if there were a 'Palestinian state' this would not have happened.
/sarc
Labels: Domodedovo Airport, Moscow, Russia, terror attacks
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:43 PM
2 Comments:
In the Soviet time, this would be impossible. With unrestricted travel now possible throughout most of the Russian Federation, there are lot of soft targets for terrorists to attack. Both Russians and foreigners have to register when they visit a city but this is nowadays a formality and is easily circumvented.
What this terrorist attack points out is the most commonplace security methods in Russia, Europe and America - that is, in airports there are useless in preventing homocide bombing attacks. If you really want to blow up large numbers of people, patting down Mr and Mrs. Carl's crotch, to give an example of your family, wouldn't prevent it from happening.
A new look is needed at ineffectual aviation security protocols that simply inconvenience airline passengers and add nothing to real security, either on the ground or in the skies.
What a horrible event! I hate to hear about things like this anywhere in the world.
Post a Comment
<< Home