Posted on 01/31/2011 11:36:29 AM PST by struwwelpeter
24-year-old Zeynap Suyunova, arrested in Volgograd and suspected of involvement in an explosion at a Moscow shooting club on December 31st, confessed to security services that her accomplices were planning two terrorist attacks in the capital - one of them at the airport, reports Life News. There is no official confirmation of this information. A day earlier the National Antiterrorism Committee would only state that interrogation of suspects in the shooting club blast had prevented of two terrorist attacks in Dagestan. According to the official version, the planned New Year’s Eve bombing in the capital and the attack on Domodedovo airport were the handiwork of two different subversive groups.
According to Life News, Suyunova confessed that her accomplices were planning to set off a bomb on Manege Square and at an airport (which airport was not specified). The terrorist attacks were thwarted by chance: the plan failed when a second suicide bomber was blown up at a motel in Kuzminki on December 31st. That bomb was triggered at about 9:30 pm and completely destroyed one of the cottages at the ‘Target’ shooting club on Golovachev Street in Kuzminki.
During interrogation, Suyunova explained that her involvement with the terrorist group was because of blackmail: “I had no other choice. These people had stolen my daughter and said that they would kill her if I didn’t blow myself up.”
Prior to joining the terrorists, Suyunova and her husband, Anvarbek Amangaziev, were involved in the extremist underground while living in Pyatigorsk. One day her husband packed up and moved out (as was previously reported, Suyunova’s husband and three other Wahhabi militants were arrested by the FSB on October 26th, 2010).
Afterwards Suyunova and her daughter went to live with friends - Mariya Khorosheva and Vitaly Razdobudko, the so-called ‘Russian Wahhabi’ whom the press had earlier tried to link to the terrorist attack at Domodedovo. Suyunova soon learned that her husband had been arrested, and that she herself was wanted for attempting an act of terrorism in Stavropol, in which her husband was involved.
Razdobudko took the woman and her child from Pyatigorsk to Dagestan. There he tried to force her to commit a terrorist attack, and then tried to convince her to become a suicide bomber. When the woman refused, two men took away her daughter. They threatened to kill the girl, and so Suyunova agreed.
As reported by Life News, a second suicide bomber, who was killed at the shooting club, was a 50-year-old woman named Aminat. The two suicide bombers were put on a bus to Moscow and arrived in the capital on December 28th, where they were met and taken to the cottage Golovachev Street. “We already know what happened after that,” a source close to the investigation told the publication. “Aminat accidentally blew herself up, and Zeynap got frightened and ran away.” Suyunova was caught a few days later in Volgograd.
On January 29th the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC) reported that another four terrorists from Suyunova’s group had been captured: Shamil Baymambetov, Timur Akubekov, Ilyas Saidov, and Khairull Magomedov. According to the NAC, they also confessed. Five persons are now wanted: 25-year-old Arsen and Kamil Magomedov, 32-year-old Shamil Payzulaev, and Vitaly Razdobudko and his common law wife Maria Khorosheva. “Due to the exceptional danger these people pose to the public,” the NAC urges citizens “to exercise vigilance in the case of their appearance, and call on FSB duty hotline.”
According to the NAC, these people were not involved in the bombing of Domodedovo: the official version states that two independent terrorist groups were acting in Moscow. Whatever the facts are, another alleged suicide bomber was put on the Wanted List: 22-year-old Bella Barkinhoeva of Nazran, according to Life News. One day the girl had vanished, but then on December 9th she phoned her mother from Vnukovo airport and said she was preparing to commit a terrorist act.
With regard to blast on January 24th at Domodedovo, during the weekend the Investigating Committee of Russia (ICR) reported on the investigation into the attack. According to the ICR, the identity of the bomber who murdered 35 has been established: he was a 20-year-old native of the North Caucasus. Investigators did not report any details about who was behind the attack on Domodedovo, though they promised to unveil details later.
31.01.2011 09:45
Gee, I hope they didn’t use forceful methods to learn this information... they can get in trouble for that.
No..Of course not! They sat her down with a cup of tea and asked her if she would PLEASE tell them everything she knows.../sarcasm LOL
Suicide bomber’s mother tells of her daughter’s recruitment
Terrorist’s mother says her daughter was convinced to do the bombing “by an ordinary Russian guy named Vitaly” who threatened to kill her baby.
The mother of Zeynap Suyunova, who is accused of readying a terrorist attack in Moscow, requests the authorities find the terrorist ringleaders who involved a her 24-year-old daughter in their gang.
“I’m pleading with the investigators,” cries Nurbike Ismailovna Suyunova. “Find and punish the ones who brainwashed my daughter!”
Nurbike Ismailovna is certain that they tricked her daughter into becoming involved in terrorism.
Nurbike Suyunova is a respected person in the village of Mahmud-Mehteb in the Stavropol territory, and a family doctor. The news that her daughter was accused of terrorism came as a shock.
“It’s all because of her Masha!” wept the mother. “Who could’ve guessed what their friendship would lead to?”
The girlfriend the mother is referring is Mariya Khorosheva, wife of Vitaly Razdobudko - the terrorist wanted for complicity in the bombing of Domodedovo.
“Zeynap met Masha while at a preparatory class before entering pharmacy school,” sighs Nurbike Ismailovna. “When she said she’d made friends with a Russian girl, I was delighted - I grew up among Russians myself. But then Masha got sucked into Wahhabism and pulled Zeynap in with her. And Masha, in turn, recruited her husband. Who could’ve guessed that a good Russian guy like Vitaly with two degrees would ever join the ‘Nogai Jamaat’?”
Back then, however, none of their relatives knew anything about it.
“Zeynap was glad to go to school,” says her mother. “I was happy for her, until when, in her fifth year, she suddenly starts going around in this black shawl beneath which you could only see her eyes. I was indignant, we grew up in Soviet times and suddenly here I have one of these in my own family! I grumbled: what is that you’re dressed up in? Why are you praying all the time? And my daughter was only silent. She’d just lower her head and walk away. Later she stopped talking to me completely.”
There was another reason for the cooling in the relationship.
“One day she comes home and says she’s gotten married,” confesses Nurbike Suyunova. “Her father and I were numb: What? Nobody’s said a thing about it, not to mention even asking for our blessing! She just put the fact before us, but we never accepted her choice.”
- Why?
“We wanted our daughter to graduate from college first, but she decided for herself. There was no wedding. She just started living with him. Her Anverbek didn’t have any real job - from time to time he’d do apartment renovations. What kind of a man is that?”
After her break with her parents, Zeynap was absent for two years.
Soon Zeynap’s husband Anverbek Amangaziev was jailed and accused of terrorism. Meanwhile their daughter Adilya was born.
“But I still haven’t seen my granddaughter,” sighs Nurbike Ismailovna. “Zeynap no longer came to see us, not for her brother’s wedding, not for her father’s birthday. When could we have seen the baby? Adilya’s already a year and 2 months old, and I’ve never even held her in my arms.”
Now Zeynap Suyunova and her common-law husband Anverbek Amangaziev are testifying to investigators from the Lefortovo detention facility, while her relatives live in constant fear for their own lives and the lives of their children.
“Why did this have to happen to Zeynap?” The mother lowers her head. “Because she’s by nature a good person, and successful, you can ask anyone. At school she got all A’s and got along with the other children, and she loved animals. How did they brainwash her? With drugs, hypnosis?”
Nurbike Suyunova fears that something terrible has happened to Zeynap’s baby. “But where is the baby? Where’s Adilya?” asks the mother. “If they would just tell us we’d go and get her right away, this very day! I beg you, return the little girl to us. She’s my own flesh and blood. She’s our granddaughter. We can’t abandon her, just as we can’t abandon our unlucky daughter.”
By Olga Kolmogorova, Life News Online
16:36, Sunday 30 January 2011
http://www.lifenews.ru/news/49651
They probably vodka-boarded the perps.
Vladimir Ovchinsky: Putin’s anti-terrorism pyramid turned out to be a Ponzi scheme
After shaking up the transport police department, Medvedev introduces the post of ‘deputy minister for transportation security’
President Dmitry Medvedev has created a new post. Yet another deputy interior minister, one who will be responsible for transportation security. Appointed to the new post was Colonel-General of Police Viktor Kiryanov, who previously headed the Russian department of traffic police. The president announced this during a meeting with Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and General Kiryanov.
The Head of State recalled that recently he made several executive orders in the field of transportation security, noting that the Prime Minister expects a report in the near future. “Even before the execution of these orders, I believe that the Interior Ministry must optimize its work relative to transportation,” the president said, adding that this is necessary in order to ensure security and law enforcement. He noted that this was his reason for establishing a new position for a deputy minister. The Head of State noted that it is not simply due to the issues of transportation, but all components: railways, air travel, and so on. “Get to work,” Dmitry Medvedev told his subordinates.
Discussing with ‘Svobodnaya Pressa’, whether the new post will help in the war on terror, is the Advisor to the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Russia, retired Major General of Police and Doctor of Jurisprudence Vladimir Ovchinsky.
‘SP’: Vladimir Semenovich (Ovchinsky), is the appointment of Deputy Minister Kiryanov a logical step?
OVCHINSKY: In and of itself it is a logical appointment, especially since the last bombing was at Domodedovo, a transportation facility. But the question arises: why is not the current leadership at the Interior Ministry responsible for the fact that, during the so-called reform of the ministry, they abolished the department of the transportation police, which acted as a coordinator? If they did not like the head of that department, had they suspected him of something, they could have fired him and appointed someone else in his place. The ministry leadership has that authority.
If the transportation issue is so important, then why did they eliminate 20 line departments of transportation over at the ministry? During the Interior Ministry’s pseudo-reform, linear control was transferred to districts and there was a reduction in force at the transportation police. It has already been established that officers from the Domodedovo transportation security detachment had received termination notices, and who even works in such a situation?
‘SP’: Fine. They appointed someone to be in charge of transportation security, but what if a terrorist attack occurs at an entertainment venue, as it did during ‘Nord-Ost’?
OVCHINSKY: You are right - a terrorist attack could also occur in any large shopping center. Over the weekend there were several false alarms about impending attacks on such facilities in Moscow and in the Moscow region. Will another deputy minister be responsible for these threats?
There should be one deputy minister for situations like this, as it has always been over at the Interior Ministry - the Deputy Minister of Public Safety. He is supposed to coordinate his activities with the FSB in order to carry out joint actions to safeguard all sites where large numbers of people congregate – on transports as well as at entertainment facilities such as theaters and shopping centers.
‘SP’: The Investigating Committee (formerly under the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, now directly subordinate to the Russian President - ed) said that the terrorist attack at Domodedovo has been solved. Along the way investigators also disclosed that they solved a terrorist attack that occurred in Kuzminki Park near Moscow on December 31st, 2010. What conclusions can we draw from this?
OVCHINSKY: It actually raises more questions. Before this there was only a rumor that there might have been an explosion in Kuzminki, or not... But now the Investigating Committee has officially announced that the remains of a suicide bomber, and a suicide bomber belt, were found on December 31st in a building owned by a shooting club. Then they arrested other members of the group. Now there is anecdotal evidence that one of the detainees told investigators that the sites (to be attacked) were airports in Moscow.
‘SP’: What does this mean?
OVCHINSKY: If the FSB and police at the scene in Kuzminki Park knew on December 31st that they had discovered a terrorist group in Moscow, then why was there not a special anti-terrorist alert spread across Moscow, the whole region, and major cities across the country?
Let us take this even further. The question is: what does our entire counter-terrorism pyramid represent? As we know, in 2006 President Putin’s decree created the National Anti-Terrorism Committee with its staff of more than 200. That committee includes representatives of every law enforcement agency and department involved in security. They have an operational headquarters, and every region created their own anti-terrorism commission. In this case the counter-terrorism pyramid is like Mavrodi’s pyramid (the Russian version of Ponzi or Madoff, Mavrodi defrauded investors of over $1 billion - ed). On December 31st it did not work. No preventive action was taken, and the people were left to the terrorists.
‘SP’: How would you assess this situation?
OVCHINSKY: Following statements by the Investigative Committee that they already knew for certain that groups of terrorists had arrived in Moscow from the North Caucasus to commit terrorist attacks, I believe that everything that happened at Domodedovo is our version of September 11th. Not in scope or number of deaths, but in its consequences.
As you know, after September 11th, the U.S. Congress and Senate held investigations into the causes of that terrorist attack, and as a result heads of law enforcement and security agencies in the U.S. were fired and a new structure, a unified Department of Homeland Security, in which all information is concentrated, was created. Because of this, over the next 10 years the Americans have not allowed a single major terrorist attack to occur in their country.
Over here everyone still has their jobs and no regulations have changed. I went to the website of the National Counter-terrorist Committee. The last update there was from in 2007. There is no new legislation, no appeals to citizens, and no pictures of wanted criminals. There is not a thing! And it is the same on the FSB’s website.
Someday this will come to a head. Someday we must restore order in the country. We will drown in blood if we have the same leaders and sane organizations working to combat terror.
Investigation Committee: Domodedovo terrorist attack solved
On January 31st the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation posted on its official website a report on the terrorist attack at Domodedovo, and the explosion of the suicide bomber in Kuzminki:
Investigators from the central investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, together with the operational staff of the FSB and the Russian Interior Ministry, solved a crime committed on January 24th, 2011, at Domodedovo airport.
The identity of the suicide bomber who committed the attack using a shrapnel bomb has been established. He is a 20-year-old native of one of the North Caucasus republics. Although investigators know the name of the terrorist, at this time we cannot give his name due to certain circumstances, since at this time investigative and search actions aimed at uncovering and arresting the organizers of this terrorist attack and their accomplices are still underway. We emphasize that the attack was in the international flights arrival hall was no coincidence. According to investigators, the attack was directed primarily against foreign nationals. Today we are also ready to release the findings of an investigation of another crime connected to terrorism.
According to the results of investigative and operational actions, all persons involved in the explosion that occurred on December 31st, 2010, in a hotel room at the ‘Sport Shooting Club and Military Hunting Society’, located on Golovachev Street in Moscow, have been identified. Some of the suspects have been detained, and in this regard 4 persons are being held under investigation. Several persons are also wanted by the operational services. According to investigators, the terrorist group was preparing a terrorist attack on the center of Moscow for December 31st, 2010.
In particular we note that investigation has revealed that two unrelated militant groups from the various North Caucasus republics committed the terrorist attack at Domodedovo and the bomb explosion in the hotel complex.
How the police were kicked off the transport
At the end of December 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on measures to improve the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Among other things, it dealt with the optimization of the Interior Ministry structure, particularly in its central office where the number of departments would be reduced from 15 to 13.
Eliminated was the department responsible for closed areas and sensitive sites, as well as the Department of Transportation Security (DTS).
Reforming DTS sparked strong reactions among both former and present leaders of transportation security. In letters to the President and Prime Minister of the country, as well as to the Interior Minister, these Soviet and Russian veterans expressed concern about the elimination of the centralized ministry agency responsible for transportation. “The need for the existing rank and file transportation police (since they works not simply within one region but along the entire transportation route) is confirmed by more than 60 years experience by imperial Russian railway police and 90 years experience of the Soviet and Russian transportation security departments, as well as the practices of transportation security in the CIS and other foreign countries,” wrote the Interior Ministry veterans to the leaders of Russia.
The police veterans received no response to their appeal from either Dmitry Medvedev or Vladimir Putin. Minster Nurgaliyev’s response can be assumed by his plan to continuing implementation of the presidential decree, which eliminates the DTS and 20 inter-regional transportation security departments responsible for rail, sea, river, and air transportation. These departments’ buildings, lands, vehicles, etc. will be transferred to a specially created commission.
According to DTS data, about 100 persons are employed at their central office, while the total number of transportation police is 50 thousand. According to the presidential decree, the Interior Ministry, consisting of 1.4 million people, must be reduced by 280 thousand by the year 2012.
From the ‘SP’ dossier:
Colonel-General of Police Viktor Nikolayevich Kiryanov was born on December 29th, 1952, in the city of Tikhvin in the Leningrad region. After military service he began work at the Tikhvin city traffic police.
From 1994 to 1996 he was chief of the department of vehicle registration and driver testing for the St. Petersburg and Leningrad regional traffic police.
On June 27th, 1996, Viktor Kiryanov was appointed deputy chief of traffic police for the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.
In 2001, Viktor Kiryanov became a member of the Chief Directorate of Traffic Police for Russia, and from October 2001 to March 2003, he served as head of the highway patrol and personnel search.
In 2004, the Directorate of Traffic Police was renamed the Department of Highway Safety (DHS) under the Interior Ministry of Russia, and Viktor Kiryanov was appointed its head. From 2004 to January 2011, he served as the chief of DHS and the chief inspector of highway safety for the Russian Federation.
In January 2011, Colonel-General Kiryanov was appointed Deputy Interior Minister for transportation security.
“This is perhaps the most responsible commission in my many years of service,” Viktor Kiryanov told ITAR-TASS. “It is too early to say what specific new measures will be taken for the performance of the president’s tasks to ensure transportation security,” he said. “But we’ll immediately get to work.”
By Andrey Polunin in ‘Svobodnaya Pressa’
January 31st, 2011
http://svpressa.ru/politic/article/38101/
Airport bomb set off by 20-year-old accounting major Magomed Yevloyev from IngushetiaIf you enjoy pictures of severed terrorist heads, there is one on the link.
EXCLUSIVE
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 16:22
Life News has learned the name of the Domodedovo bomber
Investigators were only able to identify the suicide bomber by his fingerprints and a DNA analysis of his remains.
Official representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin neither confirms nor denies the information.
36 human lives are on Magomed Yevloyev’s conscience. He was a student from Ingushetia who came under the influence of recruiters of the North Caucasus criminal underground.
A hand and a scorched head are all that remain of the 20-year resident of the village of Ali-Yurt after he blew himself up in the international arrivals hall of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.
Life News reporters headed to the village where the future suicide bomber was born, in order to reconstruct the chain of events leading to the bloody climax on January 24th.
Magomed Yevloyev left home in early September 2010. The young man told his parents that he was going to the Krasnodar territory to work.
Magomed’s 73-year-old father Muhazhir and his 54-year-old mother Roza have not received any news from their son since then.
“Yevloyev was an ordinary student,” a teacher from the local school told us. “He was a ‘C’ student and only had a few friends.”
Magomed attended school there until age 15, after which his family decided to send him to a trade school.
Yevloyev studied bookkeeping for three years, but then decided to radically change professions.
Mareta Bagautdinova, the head of the trade school, needed to dig through documents in order to find something to say about her former student. Other than from scraps of paper in the archive, there was nothing to remember him by.
“He joined us in 2005 and attended for several years, but then he decided to transfer to correspondence school,” Bagautdinova told Life News. “When he asked to switch, no one raised objections.”
After that, Magomed was not longer seen at the trade school. Two years later he was expelled for academic incompletion - the only student in his class unable to finish the curriculum.
In November 2009, Yevloyev was drafted into the army, but three months later he returned from his military unit in Vladivostok.
The fellow told his parents that he was transferred to the reserves for health reasons.
“After that he never went to school or worked, he just mostly sat at home. He was obscure, and had no violations of the law. Never noisy, and he never stuck out in particular,” says Achmed, the precinct officer for the village of Ali-Yurt. “The Yevloyev family was peaceful and intelligent. His mother Roza was an elementary school teacher here, while his father Muhazhir was retired, but he used to drive the local bus. Besides Magomed they have three daughters and a younger son.”
The Yevloyev family left the village shortly after the deadly explosion at Domodedovo.
It is known that prior to their disappearance the security services asked them for a blood sample for DNA testing.
We were unable to receive comments from the National Counter-terrorist Committee at the time of this publication.
FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov officially announced that the name of the suicide bomber had been determined. “His age is 20, and he is a resident of one of the North Caucasus republics,” the FSB chief stated. “In August of last year he joined one of the gangs.”
By Nikita Mogutin, in Life News Online
http://www.lifenews.ru/news/50590
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Medvedev: Still too early to talk about solving the Domodedovo terrorist attackMeow...hisss!
Statements by officials about solving the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Domodedovo airport were premature and invalid. President Dmitry Medvedev stated this, according to the ‘Novosti’ Russian news agency. “I consider it totally unacceptable that even before all investigative procedures are complete, even before the indictments are prepared, before it has been sent to the courts, even before sentencing and before its entry into force, somebody has announced that the case has been solved, especially one so grave,” Medvedev said during a meeting with FSB director Alexander Bortnikov and the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin.
“You reported to me that there has been progress in the investigation. That’s fine, but no representative from the Prosecutor’s Office or the Investigative Committee or any other official has the right to declare that this crime has been solved,” said Medvedev. “This crime has not been solved, although there is movement forward.”
Just the day before, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared that the terrorist attack on Domodedovo airport had been solved. He stated this during a meeting with journalists from ‘First Channel’. “The investigation is continuing and people are working, and the work is bringing results,” he said. When asked to clarify as to whether there were any clues, the Prime Minister replied: “Not just a clue – in general we can assume that it has been solved.”
Putin noted that the terrorist attack on Domodedovo was distinguished by “senseless cruelty.” “It was absolutely pointless,” said the Prime Minister. “Often they don’t even understand what they want. They can’t even articulate their demands. It’s just anarchic terrorism against everyone and everything - against the State and the existing authorities, and against the country.”
On January 29th the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) announced that the terrorist attack at Domodedovo had been solved. The Committee’s official representative, Vladimir Markin, refused to talk about the investigation, but promised to provide additional information later.
The bombing at Domodedovo airport took place on January 24th in the arrivals hall for international flights. According to preliminary reports, a bomb equivalent to about 5 kilograms of TNT and packed with metal shrapnel and worn by a terrorist suicide bomber was detonated in the middle of a crowd welcoming arrivals. As a result, 36 people were killed and over a hundred injured.
According to the Health Ministry, 114 victims of the terrorist attack were still in hospitals on Wednesday (February 2nd, 2011), and a total of 132 had been hospitalized. The ICR opened a criminal case into the bombing under three statutes of the Russian Penal Code: Article 205 (terrorist attack), Article 105 (murder), and Article 222 (illegal possession of weapons and explosives).
In ‘Grani.ru’, February 3rd, 2011 14:32
http://www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.185929.html
Why bombings continue to shake Russia
Then explosion at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, which claimed the lives of more than 30 people, is the latest in a series of similar attacks being committed in Russia.
After every such event, especially if it takes place in Moscow, politicians, experts, and ordinary people try to figure out why it happened and if they can trust the authorities who want to catch and punish the guilty, but do not promise to prevent the recurrence of such crimes.
After September 11th, 2001, there were no attacks carried out by radical organizations or fanatical loners in the U.S. The American authorities were able to prevent similar crimes, most often during their preparation and organization stages.
Control
As to why similar crimes keep occurring in Russia, Sergey Mitrokhin, the head of the Yabloko party, says that it is largely due to a lack of public control over the security services.
According to parliament member Sergey Markov from the United Russia party, one cannot blame only the security services for what happened. “I disagree categorically that our security agencies do not care whether or not something blows up,” said Sergey Markov said in an interview with BBC’s Russian service. “For them it is the most important facet of their work, and so it was a failure for them. The prevention of terrorism, however, is a political problem.”
According to Markov, “in order to stop terrorism in the North Caucasus, what is needed is for young people to get jobs, education, and that there be less corruption and none of the egregious fighting between clans that there is today.”
What have the authorities done?
Not everyone in Russia understands what exactly the “party in power” and its leader, Vladimir Putin, who has run the country as its president and prime minister for 10 years, have done to solve the social problems in the North Caucasus.
In a sense, in the fight against the underground, in addition to the armed component, there has been a declaration of intent to solve social problems with a huge infusion of funds into the depression-wracked Caucasus republics.
For many reasons, however, these funds do not automatically translate into jobs, the chief reason being corruption of epic proportions - and this in a country that holds first place as one of the most, if not the most, corrupt place in the world.
According to Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Center: “It was no accident that at the end of last year neither Vladimir Putin nor Dmitry Medvedev spoke about what happened during the year. They didn’t mention the North Caucasus, where all the efforts of the federal government in general have not led to major positive changes, and the number of terrorist attacks in the past year have doubled compared with the previous year.”
Scapegoat
In such circumstances, say some experts, all too often the only way the authorities can absolve themselves of responsibility is to find scapegoats.
After the bombings of the Moscow subway in March 2010, Kremlin loyalist politicians laid the blame on the media.
Back then many in the Russian media had criticized the security forces for being unable to prevent the tragedy.
Federation Council Speaker Sergey Mironov, at President Dmitry Medvedev’s meeting with leaders of parties represented in the Parliament, said that the media “are actually playing into the hands of terrorists by trying to convince the citizens of our country of the ineffectiveness of the existing law enforcement agencies, primarily the FSB and the Interior Ministry.”
“They have tried to show that the State is unable to avert the threat and allows terrorists to slaughter innocent citizens,” Mironov added.
Protecting the authorities
But can one say that the interests of citizens motivate the authorities to combat organized attacks?
Andrey Soldatov, chief editor of the news website Agentura.ru, said in an interview with the BBC Russian service that he is not so sure.
“The very understanding of the threat of terrorism has changed in Russia over the past five or six years,” Soldatov said. “In 1998, when we got the first law on combating terrorism, the emphasis was placed on what terrorism is: the intimidation and destruction of people. In the 2006 amendment to the law, which is in effect now, terrorism is understood to primarily be a tactic to put pressure on the government through terrorist attacks. In this case, the security forces respond in order to avoid this pressure on the authorities, and to prevent the blackmail of the government.”
In his opinion, the government copes perfectly well with this task.
“As we can see it is effective. Today it is difficult to blackmail the Kremlin with any sort of terrorist attack, but the problem is that the security services have made this their priority, while the prevention of terrorist attacks, especially those that do not endanger political stability, are tasks of lesser importance,” the expert said.
Rhetoric of the leaders
According to Soldatov, for top officials rhetoric plays an important role, but the implementation of these words leads to serious miscalculations in operational work.
After the March bombings, President Dmitry Medvedev called for the destruction of the organizers of the terrorist attacks.
“Find those involved in committing this grave crime (the explosions in Moscow), and destroy those who resist. Have no pity!” Medvedev said at a meeting with FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov and Investigation Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin, using somewhat milder rhetoric than Vladimir Putin, who called for "p---ing on them in the outhouse," using gangster slang to signify the killing of Chechen militants.
This strategy of complete destruction, however, often leaves investigators unable to find out the “who, how, and why” of a terrorist attack.
“Every time that President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin talk about the need to respond ever harsher, the need to destroy them (the militants) using all sorts of brutal epithets, the security services in turn carry out the Kremlin’s orders, in this case by destroying them, but they do get any answers to many questions,” Soldatov said.
Getting no answer
In his opinion, one example of this approach is what is has emerged since the March bombings in Moscow.
“That is what happened in the case of those who prepared the bombings of the Moscow Metro last year. They were destroyed in Dagestan. The saddest part about this story is that due their destruction, no one could not be questioned or taken to court in order to find out motives and means. What happened is we got some dead bodies, but got no explanation as to why it happened at this particular time, and who else could have been involved,” concluded Soldatov.
Moscow city parliament member and Alpha commando group veteran Sergei Goncharov also criticized the work of the security services, but for other reasons.
“There hasn’t been any serious operational field work, especially in the North Caucasus, and there are no agents like we had during the Soviet Union. Without these, no actions, threats, appeals, or statements can lead to positive results,” said Goncharov during an interview with the BBC Russian service.
According to Nikolai Petrov, however, “the sheer scale of the problem, which for a long time is no longer localized to any one place... means that it’s hardly possible to simply use force to ensure security, especially in places like Moscow.”
The political analyst believes that one cannot say that Moscow does not try to solve the problem, but its actions have been ineffective for many reasons.
“Last year they created by the North Caucasus Federal District, and they have proposed business and financial approaches to solving problems in the region. The trouble is that the scale and complexity of the problems are such that it is impossible to count on any quick and positive results. Unfortunately, Russia’s political elite have made no effort, taken the time, or even had the desire to implement any serious long-term strategy,” said Petrov.
In the BBC Russian Service, January 24th, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2011/01/110124_blasts_russia_analysis.shtml
1,561 have suffered in terrorist attacks in Moscow over the last 15 years
The blast at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on January 24th was the 26th terrorist attack to take place in the Russian capital since 1996, and the first to happen at a Moscow international airport. Since 1996, the targets of terrorists in Moscow have been various crowded locales: hotels, stations, shopping malls, concert halls, transport, and even apartment buildings. At least 627 have been killed and 934 injured. Suicide bombers carried out at least 10 of these attacks. The above figures are calculations by ‘Caucasian Knot’, and based on open-source data*.
2011
January 24th: Bombing in the international terminal at Domodedovo airport occurred at 4:32 pm. The power of the explosive device was about seven kilograms of TNT. According to recent reports, 35 were killed and 110 hospitalized. According to a preliminary theory, the explosive device was detonated by a 30-40 year-old stocky male who most likely was of European appearance.
2010
March 29th: Two explosions on the Moscow metro. The first was at the Lubyanka metro station and occurred at 7:56 am Moscow time. The second explosion was at 8:40 am at the Culture Park (formally Gorky Park) metro station. According to the FSB, two Dagestan residents, a wife and a widow of Dagestan militants, carried out the attacks. Doku Umarov, the leader of the North Caucasus militant underground, assumed responsibility. According to Umarov, the attacks were revenge for Russian military actions in Chechnya. During these terrorist attacks 40 were killed and more than 130 received injuries of varying severities.
2006
August 21st: An explosion at the Cherkizovsky marketplace in Moscow claimed 14 lives. More than 60 people were injured.
2005
June 12th: 153 km from Moscow, the Grozny to Moscow passenger train (No. 382) was derailed by explosives placed under the tracks. The locomotive and first railcar left the tracks and five coaches overturned. No deaths were reported, but 42 passengers were injured.
2004
February 6th: A blast in the Moscow metro inside the second car of a subway train on a stretch between the Paveletskaya and Avtozavodskaya subway stations. A suicide bomber committed the terrorist attack. The bomb was packed with nuts and bolts to increase its lethality. 41 were killed and another 134 wounded. Investigators identified the terrorist as 21-year-old Anzor Izhaev, a resident of Karachay-Cherkessia.
August 24th: Two passenger aircraft blown up in mid-air, a Tu-154 on the Moscow to Sochi route, and a Tu-134 flying from Moscow to Volgograd. Both departed from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. In both cases suicide bombers were able to board. 90 killed.
August 24th: On the same day as the destruction of the passenger jets, an explosion at a bus stop near the Kashirskaya subway station in Moscow injured four. No deaths. As in 2002, the crime was linked to organized crime.
August 31st: A female suicide bomber blew herself up at the Riga subway station in Moscow, killing 10 and wounding more than 50. According to investigators, the explosion also killed the organizer of the attack, Nikolai Kipkeev, a native of Karachay-Cherkessia.
2003
July 5th: Suicide bombers detonated themselves near the entrance to the ‘Wings’ rock festival at in Tushino, near Moscow, killing 16 and injuring another 50.
August 10th: A female suicide bomber was detained at the restaurant ‘Imbir’ (Ginger) in the center of Moscow. During deactivation of the suicide bomber’s belt an explosion killed one person.
December 9th: A bombing at the Hotel National in central Moscow. Six killed and 14 injured.
2002
October 19th: A car was blown up near a McDonald’s restaurant by the Southwest subway station on Pokryshkin Street in Moscow. Police originally blamed the explosion on organized crime, but later declared it to be a terrorist attack. One person killed and 8 injured.
October 23rd: A group of terrorists led by Movsar Barayev seized the theatrical complex on Dubrovka, where the musical ‘Nord-Ost’ was being performed, and over 1000 taken hostage. The building was stormed three days later, on October 26th. More than 130 hostages were killed while the rest were released. All the terrorists were killed.
2001
February 6th: A bomb exploded in the Belarusskaya-ring subway station during rush hour at 6:50 pm Moscow time. The bomb was placed under a massive marble bench near where the first subway car halted. No deaths, but 9 were wounded by shrapnel, including two children.
2000
August 8th: During rush hour at about 6:00 pm Moscow time a bomb exploded in the pedestrian underpass beneath Pushkin Square by the entrances to the Tverskaya and Pushkinskaya subway stations. The suicide attack killed seven and injured 53. Many were wounded by glass fragments blown out from the windows of small stores in the passageway.
1999
April 26th: Moscow was shaken this year by a series of major terrorist attacks. The first explosion of the year was in an elevator at an Intourist hotel. No deaths at the time, but 11 were injured.
August 31st: Four months later, a bomb exploded on the third floor of the Okhotny Ryad shopping mall on Manege Square. At the time, one person was killed and 40 wounded. The explosion was originally linked to organized crime, but later determined to be a terrorist attack.
September 9th: 10 days later an apartment building on Guyanov Street in Moscow was blown up. 109 were killed and more than 200 injured.
1998
January 1st: An improvised explosive device was detonated in the Tretyakov subway station. The blast was of low power and there were no deaths, though three were hospitalized with wounds of varying severities.
1996
June 11th: At about 9:00 pm Moscow time, on the Serpukhskaya subway line between the Tula and Nagatinskaya stations in Moscow, a bomb laid under a seat in the first subway car went off. The explosive device was equivalent to about 500 grams of TNT. Four were killed and 12 injured.
July 11th and 12th: Trolley buses on Moscow city routes #12 and #48 were blown up. No deaths, 8 injured in the first explosion and 26 in the second.
Moscow’s first terrorist is thought to be the bombing on its subway on January 8th, 1977, during the reign of the Soviet Union. A subway train between the Izmailovskaya and May Day stations was blown up. Among the deaths were several families returning from a viewing of the New Year’s tree. Two more explosions rocked Moscow on the same day. The total killed were 7, and 37 were injured.
According to the official investigation, Yerevan residents Stepan Zatikyan, Akop Stepanyan, and Zaven Baghdasaryan organized the bombings. During their studies at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute they had formed the underground ‘National United Party of Armenia’ and called for the return of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. All three were sentenced to death and executed in 1979.
However, even during the 1970s not everyone considered the official investigation by the Soviet government objective and truthful. It was argued that the authorities deliberately linked the bombings to the activities of dissidents in order to discredit the latter. On January 12th, 1977, academician Andrey Sakharov suggested, “the bombing of the Moscow subway and the ensuing tragic loss of life is the newest and most dangerous provocation by the repressive government in recent years,” and later openly declared, “there is good reason to fear that in this case there has been a miscarriage of justice, or deliberate falsification.”
* When specifying the numbers of victims of terrorist attacks, as a rule we have used official data published in open sources. One must be aware, however, that if at first the authorities were not inclined to underreport the number of terrorist attack victims, since 2002 official data on the number of victims of terrorist attacks may be understated.
In ‘Caucasian Knot’
http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/180089/
From the radio program ‘Hour of the press’ (on ‘Radio Liberty’)What would a Russian tragedy be without a Zionist conspiracy?
Chief editor of the weekly publication ‘Interlocutor’ talks about government secrecy
Elena Rykovtseva: Do you have enough information about the terrorist attack at Domodedovo? What could be the consequences for the ruling tandem (Medvedev & Putin – ed) with regards to this new information about the property they used? Why has the Russian public discovered such a pathologic hatred of Boris Yeltsin? These are the range of issues I have identified for discussion with Yuri Pilipenko, chief editor of ‘Interlocutor’. We will start off with the investigation of the terrorist attack at Domodedovo. It seems to me that this time there is much less information than after previous terrorist attacks. As the editor of a very popular publication, how does it seem to you?
Yuri Pilipenko: An awful lot of articles came out about the blast at Domodedovo, but journalists relied mostly on their intuition. Let us remember all the theories. First, there was a Russian Wahhabi by the name of Razdobudko. Secondly, there was the ‘Nogai battalion’. Thirdly, there they looked at these traces of a “Zionist footprint”.
Elena Rykovtseva: The “Zionist footprint” was what your ‘Interlocutor’ examined.
Yuri Pilipenko: ‘Interlocutor’ among others.
Elena Rykovtseva: Can you explain exactly what is this “Zionist footprint”? It is such an exotic theory.
Yuri Pilipenko: The president was in Jerusalem at the same time. This was offensive to the Israelis, who made very strong statements with large headlines in the papers, despite the fact that Medvedev could not enter Israel because Israeli Foreign Ministry workers were on strike. So this here is one of the theories, that the Zionist forces were offended that “he makes friend with those who are not our friends.”
The second part of this theory is that the head of the supervisory board at Domodedovo airport is Valery Kogan.
Elena Rykovtseva: Who lives in Israel.
Yuri Pilipenko: Yes, and then the struggle for real estate, the struggle for property. It is very serious. Especially since the day before (the attack) there were reports that Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport was somehow laying claim to some of the property at Domodedovo, and so here is this theory.
Elena Rykovtseva: The conversion theory.
Yuri Pilipenko: I think that we, as journalists, fantasized a lot in this regard, since there was very little official information.
Elena Rykovtseva: Less than usual.
Yuri Pilipenko: Even though they tossed some out there.
Elena Rykovtseva: But Yuri, what did they toss us? A whole week has gone by and we are told that they have identified the suicide bomber. But no first or last name? Well, they said his age is 20, and they say he was a native of the North Caucasus. Do you believe that they found this out, or is it a bluff?
Yuri Pilipenko: I will not believe until I have some kind of evidence. If the investigation is on the right track, and all is going well and they are moving toward finding out the main causes, then thank God. It would be much worse, however, if we are being deceived, if they are “hanging noodles on our ears” (making fools out of us). I have been convinced of this since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s statement, when he met with reporters from ‘First channel’. His statement was strange. He said that the case of who blew up Domodedovo has been solved. It is true that he did not say who did it, but he made this strange statement: they are people who hate the government, they hate Russia and they hate the government in Russia, and in general they are “anarchist terrorists,” - that is how he put it. So that means there are people who just want to blow something up. This statement here made me very confused, because it seems to me that it is unbelievable that there could be people, who for the sake of ‘sport’ want not just to blow up the country, but themselves as well. These people must have some good reasons for doing this, and apparently also they also had reasons for going Red Square. We understand that they were preparing a series of explosions. It is also not yet know if these groups were connected. Of course I would like more information, and that is would be more precise.
(SNIP)
Elena Rykovtseva: I am reading what they are writing... We have just seen on the news wire that 10 people have been detained. They were preparing a terrorist attack on Moscow for New Year’s Eve. And now the latest “lightning update”: several persons having information about preparations for a terrorist attack on Domodedovo were detained. That is very unusual wording. I have never seen that before: “having information”.
Yuri Pilipenko: Well, since Vladimir Putin already knows who blew up...
Elena Rykovtseva: It turns out that they detained Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin), since he has information about preparations. Raisa writes: “Putin said in an interview that he does not show off his daughters, because he's afraid for their lives. That is how he summed up his activities. If he is afraid for his own children’s lives, what are the rest of the citizens supposed to do?”
Yuri Pilipenko: It speaks about the situation in our country. If the leaders of our nation fear for their children’s lives, we all need to be afraid...
Full text of the broadcast can be found at the site of ‘Radio Liberty’.
http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/2295295.html February 3rd, 2011
Doku Umarov threatens Russia with a ‘Year of Tears’
Doku Umarov, leader of the North Caucasus underground, has threatened Russia with new attacks. In a video posted on one of the extremists’ websites, Umarov vowed “a year of blood and tears.” According to the militant, he plans to commit acts of terrorism once a week or once a month, leaving their regularity “at the discretion of Allah.”
Umarov said that his militants in Russia were supposedly carrying out a certain mission, and that he had sent a “warrior” by the name of Sayfullah to do the job. The newspaper ‘Novaya Gazeta’ suggested that Sayfullah was the suicide bomber who attacked Domodedovo. Journalists from ‘Caucasus Online’ also adhere to the theory that Umarov was referring to the terrorist attack at the capital city airport.
As targets of Umarov’s planned terrorist attacks, he named those who do not like Islam and mock people from the Caucasus. Umarov, however, did not specify his reasons for targeting the arrivals hall at Domodedovo, which resulted in the deaths of citizens of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - countries with majority Muslim populations.
An act of terrorism at Domodedovo airport occurred on January 24th, 2011, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives with a power of 2 to 5 pounds of TNT in the arrivals halls. Not counting the terrorist, 36 people were killed, and 180 received wounds of varying severity.
After the terrorist attack on Domodedovo, telephonic threats increased in several Russian cities. In Moscow, following the bombing of the airport, several large shopping centers had to be evacuated because of bomb threats. The last such incident occurred on Saturday, February 5th, when a threatening phone call forced the police to evacuate all visitors from the ‘Atrium’ shopping mall on Kursk, and search it for explosives.
In early February, a number of officials, including Vladimir Putin, announced that the terrorist attack had been solved, but shortly thereafter Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that it was premature to make such statements before any court decision. After the terrorist attack, a series of retirements in the ranks of law enforcement followed: the leadership of the agency responsible for security at Domodedovo airport was axed.
Doku Umarov, who calls himself the “Emir of the Caucasus Emirate,” has repeatedly claimed responsibility for bombings in Moscow. In particular, Umarov claimed involvement in the double bombing of the Moscow subway in March 2010.
February 5th, 2011 in 'Lenta.ru'
http://lenta.ru/news/2011/02/05/notscared/
Explosives for Domodedovo suicide bomber were prepared in relative’s home
Investigators have determined that the bomb, detonated on January 24th at Domodedovo airport, was prepared in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo at the home of a distant relative of the suicide bomber. This was reported on February 10th in the newspaper ‘Kommersant’.
According to investigators, the bomb was based on ammonium nitrate with a plastic explosives detonator, and was prepared in the home of Boris Bogatyrev - a relative of militant Bekkhan Bogatyrev, who is married to suicide bomber Magomed Yevloyev’s 22-year-old sister, Fatima. A few days ago the bomb factory in Boris Bogatyrev’s house was destroyed, while the owner of the house, according to ‘Kommersant’, has been placed on the most-wanted list.
Magomed Yevloyev lived in the village of Ali-Yurt, near Ekazhevo. He served in the army, but was transferred to the reserves after only four months due to the effects of a childhood head injury. Shortly thereafter, he began cohabitating with a 16-year-old girl named Maryam, who began to call herself his “wife” against the wishes of her parents. In August 2010, Maryam and Yevloyev parted ways due to the young man’s extreme jealousy. During the same time period, Yevloyev’s brother-in-law, Bekkhan Bogatyrev, was killed in the village of Pliyevo. Following these events, 20-year-old Yevloyev told his parents that he was leaving to work in the Krasnodar region.
‘Kommersant’ wrote that, according to investigators, the young man actually went into the woods, where he joined the remnants of Bekkhan Bogatyrev’s gang. In the fall of 2010, however, the gang was finally defeated. Because of his childhood injury, Yevloyev was considered unfit for further combat, and was sent to join a militant by the name Khamzat, the head of a brigade of suicide bombers for Doku Umarov’s extremist group, the ‘Caucasus Emirate’. Khamzat decided to use the young man for the bombing of Domodedovo.
Investigators told journalists that on January 19th, 2011, Yevloyev returned to Ali-Yurt. There he met his sister Fatima, his 16-year-old brother Achmed Yevloyev, and his childhood friend Umar Aushev. The bomb for the terrorist was built in Boris Bogatyrev’s house, and then Aushev drove Magomed to the bus station. There the young man took a bus to Moscow. On January 24th, he blew himself up at Domodedovo, killing 35 people at the scene (one person later died in a hospital).
Achmed and Fatima Yevloyev are currently under arrest. Swabs of their hands found traces of RDX, which is a form of plastic explosives. Aushev was also arrested. Placed on the wanted list in connection with the terrorist attack are 24-year-old Islam Yevloyev and 32-year-old North Ossetia native Timur Yandiyev.
Also suspected of involvement in the terrorist attack is 20-year-old Adam Ganizhev. According to some media reports, he is being held in detention, though not yet under arrest. According to other media reports, however, he is still being sought. According to the newspaper ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’, it is known that Ganizhev was born into an Ingush family that at the time was living in Russia’s Oryol region. In early 1990, the family returned to Ingushetia. The family has been successful, and Adam’s father Magomed Ganizhev at one time was the head of village administration (mayor) of Ali-Yurt.
After a trip to Mecca, Magomed Ganizhev began to pay greater attention to religion, and in this his wife and son supported him. Adam Ganizhev participated in boxing, and won major competitions in the city of Rostov. He is described as an obedient and “domestic” young man. According to his relatives, six months ago Adam went missing: he went to a store and never returned.
In ‘Lenta.ru’, February 10th, 2011
http://lenta.ru/news/2011/02/10/finger/
Leader of Ingush militants arrested for Domodedovo terrorist attack
Arrested on suspicion of organizing the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport is Bashir Khamkhoyev, reported Interfax. Earlier an official representative of the Ingush Interior Ministry told the news agency that 20-year-old Khamkhoyev is one of the militant leaders in the republic’s Sunzha district, and has been on the most-wanted list for some time.
Information about Khamkhoyev’s detention was broadcast on February 3rd, but at the time there was no mention of his involvement in the terrorist attack on the airport. It was reported that he was involved an automobile accident, and did not resist arrest. In a search of Khamkhoyev’s car, a Kalashnikov rifle, ammunition, a notebook, and several mobile phones were found.
Khamkhoyev is thought to have been involved in a number of acts of sabotage and terrorism. It was noted that the young man was on the wanted list for several years for his participation in the criminal underground. Investigators believe that Khamkhoyev is connected with Doku Umarov, the leader of the North Caucasus militants. Doku Umarov took responsibility for the attack on Domodedovo.
20-year-old Magomed Yevloyev, from the Ingush village of Ali-Yurt, bombed the arrivals hall at Domodedovo airport. Investigators believe that Yevloyev’s 16-year-old brother Achmed and his 22-year-old sister Fatima assisted him in preparing the bomb. They were arrested in Magas. Also arrested in the terrorism case was a 23-year-old man by the name of Umar Aushev.
In addition, it was announced that 23-year-old Islam Yevloyev and 20-year-old Adam Ganizhev were placed on the federal wanted list, guidance on which was sent to the publication ‘Samara News’, as well as to police units in the Volga region. It was noted that a 32-year-old man by the name of Timur Yandiyev was also been placed on the wanted list, but this information has not yet been officially confirmed.
A source told ‘Interfax’ that the arrested individuals continue to be held and questioned in Ingushetia, but later they will be transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. Meanwhile, lawyers for the three suspects told Russian Information Agency ‘Novosti’ that their clients being held in a jail in Vladikavkaz. The lawyers stated that they have not received notice of their clients’ transfer to Moscow.
The terrorist attack on Domodedovo occurred on January 24th, 2011. 36 people were killed and more than a hundred were injured.
In ‘Lenta.ru’, February 10th, 2011
http://lenta.ru/news/2011/02/10/fourth/
Detainees arrested at Moscow railway station are transferred to Chechnya
Four Chechen natives, arrested Tuesday night at the Kiev railway station in Moscow on suspicion of involvement in illegal armed gangs, were transferred to Chechnya for further investigation. According to Interfax, three men and a woman were detained during the boarding of the Moscow to Kishenev (Moldova) train. Officers from the criminal investigation department of the Chechen Interior Ministry, who made the arrests jointly with the Moscow police, accompanied the suspects to Chechnya.
According to a source in the security services, on Monday all units of the Moscow police force received a detailed bulletin containing the descriptions of suspects wanted on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack in Russia. At the same time, Interior Minister of Chechnya Ruslan Alkhanov stated that the detainees were planning to travel outside of Russia, and stressed that the ministry had no information that anyone from the group intended to commit bombings in Moscow.
“The group includes one Khasu Batalov, who has been on the federal wanted list since 2009 for participating in attacks on policemen in the Achkhoi-Martan district. He was carrying false documents issued in the name of Ruslan Yusupov. Also in the group is Hassan Khaliyev, who previously served sentences for participation in illegal armed gangs, and Ramzan Khaliyev, an accomplice,” said Interior Minister Alkhanov. He stressed that “according to available data, the preparation of their travel documents and the organization of the proposed trip abroad was performed by Anzhela Batalova, Khasu Batalov’s sister. Life News states that Batalova is the widow “of one of the (Chechen) field commanders.” “Since there is no direct travel from Chechnya to Europe, Anzhela Batalova brought her brother to Moscow,” the Chechen Interior Ministry press service reported to the publication. “But it is difficult to say why they chose this route.”
On February 10th, the capital’s Kiev railway station received an unexpected security drill when President Dmitry Medvedev visited the station accompanied by Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, and Attorney-General Yuri Chaika. The president was unhappy with the state of the station’s security measures, and threatened to reshuffle the transportation sector. At a Kremlin meeting after their trip to the station, Medvedev ordered the FSB to assume overall control of transportation security, and charged the Attorney General with testing rail transportation security.
“Unfortunately, even the most tragic incident didn’t teach us a thing,” said the president. “And so, if the heads of government departments are unable to process information and make the necessary decisions, then we’ll have to make some decisions on personnel. Part of the solution to the transportation sector is as follows.”
In 'Grani.ru', 16.02.2011 19:07
http://www.grani.ru/War/Chechnya/m.186315.html
Vitaly Razdobudko recorded himself before death
Russian Wahhabi Vitaly Razdobudko and his common-law wife Maria Khorosheva, both suspected of twin terrorist attacks on February 14th in the Dagestani village of Gubden, videotaped messages before their deaths. This became known after their respective recordings appeared on a video-sharing site and were copied to a number of extremist websites. Investigators intend to append these recordings to the criminal case.
Maria Khorosheva’s video message lasts seven and a half minutes, and appeared online on February 22nd. The recording of her common-law husband, Vitaly Razdobudko, lasts about an hour, and was uploaded the following day. Khorosheva was taped sitting in front of wall draped with a white blanket, her bowed head covered in gray cloth. She utters words of reproach to Muslims who do not yet support the Mujahideen.
Vitaly Razdobudko’s tape also summons viewers to fight against ‘infidels’, although in his monologue, which he gives while sitting behind the wheel of Lada Priora, lasts much longer, and is replete with numerous quotes from the Koran. In the first part of the recording, the terrorist makes frequent pauses, and stutters while quoting verses from the Muslim holy book, and instead of making any logical connection between the verses, he constantly uses such word-parasites as ‘in general’ to move from one disconnected thought to another. A companion dressed in a tracksuit held the camcorder, and the frame constantly wanders from the subject: first picking out an assault rifle inside the dark interior the car, and then the dashboard. In the second part of the recording, Razdobudko often leafs through the pages of the Koran to find the right verse, while the video operator in one part focuses the camera in a close up of the dash, where a mysterious glowing green switch is visible, installed there specifically to trigger an explosive device. The bomb is shown at the end of the recording, when the video leaves the car interior and shows the opened trunk: “And for our enemies, we have prepared a new gift.” Both recordings are preceded with a frame, titled: “Riyadh-s-Salikhin martyrs battalion.” The same organization claimed responsibility for the on January 24th at Domodedovo airport. After that terrorist attack, militant websites carried a recordings of speeches by suicide bomber Magomed Yevloyev and the two supposed organizers of the attack, Doku Umarov and a certain man named Khamzat, who called himself the commander of the ‘Riyadh-s-Salikhin’.
It is almost certain that the February 14th terrorist attack in Gubden was committed by Stavropol region native Maria Khorosheva, according to a report made the following day by the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR). Recall that Khorosheva tried to enter a building housing the Gubden village police department, but was stopped by Interior Ministry soldiers on duty by a swinging-arm gate. At this point the suicide bomber or her associates set off her bomb. The explosion killed one soldier and another five were injured. It was later reported by representatives from the Interior Ministry that the dead and injured soldiers prevented a perhaps even more bloody terrorist attack, had Khorosheva managed to enter the building where there were several dozen of security officials at work.
Since the bomb was not very powerful, Khorosheva, who had earlier been put on the most-wanted list for suspicion of involvement in the preparation of the New Year’s Eve bombings in Moscow, was initially identified visually, and then, according to other data, by DNA testing.
Identification of the second suicide bomber, who was blown up together with a Lada Priora that had been stopped by police on the outskirts of Gubden (one police officer was killed and another 20 injured), was delayed. The explosion of this powerful bomb tore the suicide bomber to shreds. He was apparently driving to the scene of the first attack, where an operational investigative group was at work.
Yesterday, ‘Kommersant’ reported that the ICR had still not identified the terrorist who was driving the Priora, since after the explosion there were many small fragments that had to be sent in for genetic examination. In this case, a source told ‘Kommersant’, the video posted on the Internet by the terrorists would be appended to the criminal case.
In the newspaper ‘Kommersant’, #34 (4575) 02/26/2011
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1592545&ThemesID=626
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