Was Moscow saved from disaster by a text message?

‘MK’ was in the terrorists’ lair to find out why the New Year’s Eve attack failed

A terrorist attack on Moscow had been planned since the beginning of November, security service sources told ‘MK’. A blast was planned for the night of December 31st-January 1st, at the scene of the most popular New Year’s Eve celebrations, but the blast took place early, within a few hours of the festive midnight. According to one theory it was by shear luck: Spam – A Happy New Year greeting from the phone company - was sent to the suicide bomber’s cell phone. The blast killed the suicide bomber, and her accomplices fled the scene. Afterwards they planned (and implemented) an attack on Domodedovo. ‘MK’ visited the house where the security services supposed the terrorists had gone into hiding.

In mid-December, law enforcement agencies in Moscow received a security alert about a possible terrorist attack. Rank and file policemen treated it fairly lightly: the FSB puts out such warnings fairly regularly. “We certainly pay attention to them,” commented one guardian of the public order. “But to ourselves we jokingly recall the tale of the boy who cried wolf. It’s strange that immediately after the terrorist attack the leaders began to claim there wasn’t any warning. That’s pretty stupid.”

According to the security alert, an international gang was preparing to carry out bombings in the capital. Supposedly one of the groups consisted of three women and a man of Chechen nationality. They had rented an apartment in a city about 30-40 km from Moscow, and then rented another house on Profsoyuznaya Street, where they were constructing explosive devices. Profsoyuznaya was torn apart, but all that was found was a mini-workshop for converting gas pistols to accept live ammo.

The last address of the terrorists was in a park in Kuzminki. It was there that the first blast took place.

A few hours before the New Year’s festivities, a large explosion rang out in a rifle and shotgun shooting range in the park. A bomb had gone off in a guesthouse, and the shock wave almost completely destroyed the structure and set it on fire. Witnesses saw the burning cottage and noted a man and woman fleeing on foot down Golovachev Street.

“The suicide bomber’s belt went off, and all that remained was her head,” one of the guardians of law and order who visited the scene told ‘MK’. This is probably a bit exaggerated: forensic experts state that the suicide bomber’s body was brought to them in satisfactory condition. “She died from the explosion, but all her body parts, and her face, are intact. This means that the explosion took place some distance from her.”

At the morgue the dead body was recorded as 24-year-old Zeynat Suyunova. That was the name used to rent the cottage where blast occurred.

Security services quite quickly found out that Suyunova was still alive, and that she was the woman seen fleeing the cottage immediately after the explosion.

Databases show that Zeynat Suyunova is listed as the wife of a member of the Caucasus criminal underground. Her husband was arrested in September of 2010 and is now in prison in Pyatigorsk. Suyunova was born in July of 1986 in the Shelkovsk district of what was the Chechen-Ingush SSR, and in 1993 she moved with her family to a permanent residence in the Stavropol region. Suyunova is Kumyk by nationality (belonging to the indigenous population of Dagestan - ed), and has never lived in Chechnya. According to Mahmud Metkeb, administrator of her village, a few years ago Zeynat and her younger sister left to pursue higher education. Zeynat started studying to be a pharmacist at the Pyatigorsk State Pharmaceutical Academy, and her sister studied economics in Stavropol, and since then the sisters have not been seen in their hometown. Zeynat’s family is prosperous - her mother works as a physical therapist in an outpatient clinic, and her father is at home on disability.

Later there were reports that Suyunova was arrested on a train in Volgograd on January 5th. In the course of investigating her, we found out some details. In particular, the security services learned that Zeynat was in charge of a suicide bomber, for whom she rented a cottage in Kuzminki. The suicide bomber was to arrive at Manege Square late in the evening of December 31st. At first, according to security services, the selected target was Red Square, but then the idea of a suicide bombing in the heart of Moscow was cancelled: the organizers concluded that passing through the police cordons to Spassky tower would be almost impossible. Manege became the target largely due its increased “popularity” over the last month: because of the murder of Spartak soccer fan and the ensuing riot, Manege Square became famous throughout the world.

The terror attack, however, fell though due to an absurd coincidence. Apparently a disposable cell phone had been purchased for the suicide bomber and it was supposed to only receive text messages, probably from Suyunova. Such a text was to cause the explosive device to go off, but what the terrorist did not take into account, was that mobile phones receive a lot of holiday Spam from the cell phone companies. Such a greeting triggered the explosion in the guesthouse. The truth, according to our experts, indicates a lack of professionalism on the part of the suicide bomber. Usually the phone is only switched on just before its last text message, in order to prevent such an accident.

The location the terrorists chose to prepare for their attack is worthy of note. The shooting club is located in a remote forest near the Moscow Ring Road, and across the fence is the army’s legendary Moscow School of High Command. Getting into the club is no problem - there is no pass system at the checkpoint, and the barrier is always up. There are few people at the shooting range, but shots can regularly be heard from the skeet range. Along an alley are the guest cottages. The one that was blown up is the first one, closest to the checkpoint. We went into the next one to find the administrator.

“Want to rent a cottage? Please. A single is 1,800 rubles a day. We have a beautiful place here, they only shoot up until 5:00, so it shouldn’t interfere with sleep.”

- Can one rent without a passport? I only have a driver’s license.

“Oh, no.” The administrator is strained. “I can’t without a passport. Although... are you from Moscow? I’ll try to ask my supervisor, but I doubt it very much.”

- Say, we saw the destroyed cottage, what happened?

“Oh, nothing special, a fire. Some drunken guests before New Year’s set a mattress on fire. We’re tearing it down and building a new one.”

On the way out the reporters make a detailed inspection of the ruined building, which is surrounded by a crime scene tape. All the glass in the house is broken, and the window lattice bars are arched outward slightly. There are traces of a fire, but it is obvious that the nature of the damage is not from this. A blast took place inside and knocked out the back wall. The wooden door is sealed: “No entry without permission of the prosecutor’s office.”

According to ‘MK’, yesterday an operational investigative team planned to reexamine the guesthouse to find new clues linking the December 31st explosion with the tragedy at Domodedovo airport. The evidence can hardly please the security services. In this case they may have to admit to being unsuitable for their line of work: according to our research, Zeynat Suyunova definitely knew that the failed New Year’s Eve attempt was not the only terror attack, and that preparations for the airport bombing had begun shortly after the failure of the attack on Manege Square. Domodedovo, moreover, was not chosen out of the blue: just before the New Year, the airport was made famous because of a blackout that stranded tens of thousands of passengers there, and nearly led to rioting. One gets the impression that terrorists choose places that receive the most “notoriety” in the media.

According to the security services, preparation for the terrorist attack on Domodedovo airport took place in a rented apartment in Zelenograd. On January 20th, security officers carried out a massive operation to capture the terrorists. It ended, however, as usual - with nothing. According to some reports, the suspects left their safe house exactly one day before the secret police raided the place, and laid low elsewhere. The terrorists knew the authorities were on their heels, and so decided to blow up Domodedovo while they still had time.

Shortly before the bombing, the terrorists engaged in reconnaissance and did a few “hits” to check security readiness for trouble, and the possibility of bringing explosives inside. That is why the security services are now checking not only security cameras installed in the arrivals hall, but also recordings made by other cameras earlier. It now turns out that smuggling six kilograms of TNT into an airport under a heavy winter jacket is no problem. Passing through the metal detector, of course, the suicide bomber would “ring” just the same as passengers with mobile phones, coins, keys, and belt buckles. Only this time the metal detector was responding to a few wires and a battery that made up the detonator, and no one in security would pay much attention to it.

According to an already well-established pattern, there were three terrorists in Domodedovo airport: one performer, and two “escorts”, just in cause the suicide bomber at the last minute “jumped” - got scared, changed his mind, or aroused the suspicion of security. More than likely, the “controller” left the international arrivals area several seconds before the suicide bomber detonated, but there is some ambiguity with regards to the second “controller”. There is anecdotal evidence that the explosion killed two terrorists – the suicide bomber and one of the terrorists who accompanied him. The FSB have been paying a lot of attention to two unidentified corpses.

The body of the suicide bomber is at the Bureau of Forensic Medicine. One of the investigators admitted that the suicide bomber’s head was left intact, which should facilitate identification. The description of what remains of the suicide bomber only takes a few lines: a leg fragment up to the knee, covered with hair; a leather, fur-lined boot; a patch of fabric from some black, shiny trousers; two pieces of insulated flannel under trousers; and a second leg in a piece of black trousers, located at a distance of 100 meters. There are some interesting findings, however: the suicide bomber apparently hid explosives in small pockets of a back support belt, which is usually used for radiculitis. Also found was a car alarm key fob - perhaps what was used to power the bomb. Next to the remains of the suicide bomber they also found... a bag containing the Holy Bible and Christian religious texts. Why a terrorist would need such books before his death is a mystery.

A COMMENT FROM AN EXPLOSIVES EXPERT

Judging from everything, the bomb was smokeless, uncovered plastique. I am certain that it was plastique because it is twice as powerful than TNT, and also 30 percent more efficient if is not diluted, of course. According to the rules of the genre, plastique is filled with nuts, bolts, and ball bearings – sub-munitions. The blast wave went downward, because the explosion was undirected. To create a lateral blast, you need to more strongly force it into a shape, while an undirected blast always goes downward and to the side. When the explosives experts determine what kind of material was used in the bombing, it will become clearer where they got it. If it was plastique, it could have come from the looting of warehouses in the Caucasus - a huge amount was plundered, sold, and exported after the war to South Ossetia. If it was C4 - the American counterpart of plastique - it could have been brought across the Georgia-Azerbaijan border, where the border is transparent and you can simply walk across.

Material: from ‘MK’ reporters
Category: TERROR ATTACK

Another paper's plagiarized piece:

‘MK’: Large terror attack at Manege Square prevented by cell phone Spam

On New Year’s Eve there could have been a large terrorist attack in Russia - a suicide bomber had been about to bring an explosive device to Moscow’s Manege Square. This was reported in ‘Moskovsky Komsomolets’, citing sources in the security services. According to the newspaper’s interlocutors, the terrorists were foiled in their plans by an accident: the blast took place a few hours early in a shooting club in Kuzminki because the bomber’s mobile phone received a text message – Season’s Greetings from the cell phone company. The blast killed the suicide bomber, and her accomplices fled the scene.

According to investigators, an international gang had been planning New Year’s Eve bombing in the capital. Supposedly one of the groups consisted of three women and a Chechen man. They rented an apartment in a town about 30-40 kilometers from Moscow, and also set up in a guesthouse at a rifle and shotgun shooting range in a park in Kuzminki, where the early detonation of the explosives took place.

Sources close to the investigation of the airport attack speculate that the bomb set off at Domodedovo airport was packed with plastic explosives, and that careless handling on December 31st in Kuzminki triggered an identical bomb.

According to ‘MK’, 24-year-old Zeynap Suyunova, who was arrested on January 5th in Volgograd, rented the house where the explosion occurred. She is of Kumyk nationality and was born in 1986 in the Shelkovsk district of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Socialist Republic, and in 1993 had moved to the Stavropol region.

Several years ago Zeynap and her sister left home to attend college. Zeynap studied to be a pharmacist at Pyatigorsk State Pharmaceutical Academy, while her sister studied economics in Stavropol. Since then the girls have not been seen in their hometown. Their mother works as a physical therapist in a clinic, while their father is at home on disability.

According to the press, Zeynap was in charge of a suicide bomber, for whom she rented a guest cottage in Kuzminki. The bomber was to arrive at Manege Square late on December 31st. According to the security services, the first target selected was Red Square, but then the idea was rejected: a thick police cordon blocked entry there. Manege Square was then chosen, because it had acquired particular notoriety because of riots there in December.

According to the security services, preparations for the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport were conducted in a rented apartment in Moscow’s Zelenograd administrative district. On January 20th, commandos stormed the apartment, but the suspects had fled the apartment exactly one day before.

In ‘Grani.ru’ on January 26th, 2011

http://www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.185674.html

Putin's earlier statement on the airport bombing:

Putin: Domodedovo terror attack has nothing to do with Chechnya

The terrorist attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport is not related to Chechnya. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this, according to RIA Novosti. He also said that Russia would not negotiate with terrorists. “No self-respecting country in the world is going down this path,” said Putin. “We must wage a ruthless fight against terrorism and extremism,” he stressed. Putin, however, noted that the nation’s leadership “has never refused to negotiate with any political forces that wish a settlement.”

The explosion in the international arrivals area of Domodedovo occurred at 4:30 pm on January 24th. The suicide attack killed 35 people. On January 26th, it was stated that all of the dead have been identified, but on the Emergencies Ministry website the list of victims only shows 28 surnames, and seven are designated as “unknown male.” According to RIA Novosti, 116 persons were injured during the attack and hospitalized at 25 clinics in Moscow and the Moscow region. According to media reports, 12 of the injured have not yet been identified.

Immediately after the attack, it was announced that the bomber was a native of the North Caucasus. Later, however, the media reported that two suicide bombers allegedly carried out the blasts. Almost immediately, however, the police denied this report and said that there was only one explosion, which was carried out by a man aged 30-40 and of European appearance.

After the attack, President Dmitry Medvedev stated that law enforcement agencies should take a look at the managers of transportation companies who believe that transportation security is a police matter. “I don’t want to hear from the management of major transportation companies that they aren’t responsible for this because it is the job of the police or someone else. People in charge of the transport process who argue like this are highly immoral, and this in itself could be a matter for law enforcement,” said Medvedev.

“The complexity of security at air hubs is no reason to do nothing,” Medvedev said. He demanded that transportation companies take an active role in protecting transportation facilities from unlawful attacks, and not shift all responsibility onto the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “The safety of air hubs is one of the most challenging issues. Indeed, attacks haven taken place not just here, but in other countries, in major airports, but this is no reason to throw up our hands and say that such activities can’t completely be controlled,” Medvedev stated at a meeting in Gorky (sic).

“We must not forget about the entrances to terminals, railway stations, and roads and parking areas adjacent to airports,” Medvedev said. “All these are the places of mass gatherings, and the security of these places should be the focus of both the police and transportation authorities.”

In ‘Grani.ru’, January 26th, 2011 16:42 Moscow time

http://www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Cabinet/m.185692.html

I like this writer's piece on Putin:

‘Twelve’ of Putin

Twelve years ago our country, shaken by bombings in Moscow, Volgodonsk and the Ryazan ‘exercise’ (when FSB agents planted explosives in an apartment building in Ryazan - ed), was presented a nondescript bureaucrat as her Savior.

Russia’s womanly, trusting soul reached for the gangster major from Dresden who promised to “p--- on all our enemies in the outhouse” (a favorite saying of V.V. Putin – ed).

The caring hands of the most notorious villains of the stormy 1990s - Abramovich, Voloshin, Yumashev, and Berezovsky - gently sat him in the Kremlin gallery. So fiercely did he grip to power, however, it now seems he will never be dislodged from there.

Every new tragedy during these 12 years, each of which would seem to demonstrate that the king is naked, this magical witch doctor has enveloped in new orders, promises, threats, and increased authority.

So it was after ‘Nord-Ost’. So it was after Beslan. And so it is this time.

There was a lot of grim symbolism during yesterday’s tragedy at Domodedovo. Few, however, remember the exact words Our Nation’s Savior spoke during his finest outhouse hour:

“We will pursue the terrorists everywhere. If they’re at the airport – we’ll get them at the airport. So, you really must excuse me, if we catch them on the toilet, in the end we’ll p--- on them. And that’s it – problem permanently solved.”

Carefully reread these immortal words, uttered nearly 12 years ago. Now this subject urgently requires that we give him the right to protect us in airports for another 12 years.

Ah yes, we have a commander-in-chief, and the image-makers have now taught Uncle Volodya to resolutely knit his brow.

He must once again call on us to “utterly destroy” and punish everyone, even “those who wash the clothes and cook the soup of terrorists.” Knowing full well the mores of our terrorist fighters from the far provinces, who travel to the Caucasus as if to a job site, Our Savior and Defender of the Holy Throne cannot but understand that the only result of his television appeals will be a significant increase in the number of extrajudicial executions of those who have nothing to do with militants, and reprisals against the families of suspects.

While this, in turn, will swell the ranks of suicide bombers and lead to new terrorist attacks on Russian territory that, once again, our valiant security services will be unable to prevent.

P.S. Dear citizens, do not bother being “outraged” that this author “did not condemn” the terrorists and “did not express” sympathy for the victims of the tragedy. All of us, including this author, are the victims of terrorists, whether yesterday, today, or tomorrow, and all of us have contracted for a quarter century in the Struggle against Terror.

In March of last year, my daughter and grandson were on their way to school, and left the subway station at Culture Park just five minutes before the blast.

By Andrei Piontkovsky, in ‘Grani.ru’, January 25th, 2011

http://www.grani.ru/opinion/piontkovsky/m.185643.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.