The Moscow Bombing - A Classic Chechen “Black Widow” Operation

OilPrice.com ^ | 05/04/2010 | Yossef Bodansky

[Faketan]

The March 29, 2010, martyr-bombings in the two Moscow Metro stations served as a reminder of the escalating and evolving jihadist surge into Russia’s soft underbelly.

The bombing took place at peak rush hour. The first martyr-bomber detonated herself at 7:56am in the Lubyanka station which serves the Kremlin’s bureaucracy. The second martyr-bomber detonated herself at 8:37am in the Park Kulturi station, a connection and transfer station from the Ring Line leading to Moscow’s center. Both martyr-bombers detonated themselves inside train cars just as the doors were opened to let passengers in and out. At the time of writing, the death toll stands at 39 fatalities and more than 70 wounded.

The Moscow bombing was a classic Chechen “Black Widow” operation carried out by young women from the Northern Caucasus. The term “Black Widows” was coined by the Russian security authorities in the mid-1990s after the Chechen jihadist leadership identified the first female martyr-bombers as widows and relatives of martyred mujahedin out to avenge their blood. As with previous “Black Widow” operations during the first half of the decade, the jihadist commanders were apprehensive about the possibility that the would-be martyr-bomber would change her mind at the last minute.

A couple of such changes of heart did happen during the first half of this decade, providing the Kremlin with tremendous intelligence gains. Therefore, the jihadists developed a system of female chaperons who escort the would-be martyrs to the spot of detonation to make sure they could not abandon their mission. They leave the would-be martyrs only a few minutes before detonation. The Metro CCTV recorded the presence of, and hovering by, such chaperons in both Metro stations.

The CCTV recordings also enabled the Russian security forces to already locate the bus driver in the line between Chechnya and Moscow who took the four women Full article at: Moscow bombing

[FoxPro]

ping

[AZLiberty]

The aggregate impact of this chain of target-killings and captures of jihadist commanders is the realization among the jihadist senior leaders that the Russian security services must have discovered ways to identify them and strike at the heart of the jamaat system.

The UN will undoubtedly pass a resolution against Russian "profiling".

[BBell]

What a sweet couple

An undated photo shows 17 year-old suicide bomber Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova posing with her husband Umalat Magomedov killed in 2009. Russian investigators have identified one of the female suicide bombers who carried out the Moscow metro bombings as the 17-year-old widow of a Caucasus militant, the Kommersant daily reported on April 2, 2010. The bomber was named as Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, the 17-year-old widow of a Dagestani Islamist rebel killed in 2009, Umalat Magomedov, Kommersant reported, citing investigators in Dagestan. –AFP Photo

[Dajjal]

jihad bump