Moscow Bomb Attack

• January 25th, 2011
• Posted by EUEditor

The toll of casualties from the suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport (24.1.11), 35 dead and 110 injured, creates both a dilemma of human suffering and a severe problem for the Russian government facing elections this year.

Domodedovo (picture) is one of five civilian airports around Moscow, with 10.56-million people the largest city in the European land mass, but also the one most heavily used by international airlines and their customers.

The explosion – 7 kg of TNT – signalled to an anxious world audience that the authorities in Moscow have not yet got their violent opponents under control.

Most suspicion has attached to Islamic militants from the North Caucasus region, known for several previous terrorist acts, most recently, a bombing last March in the Moscow subway  -beneath the accursed Lubyanka security building – in which 29 were killed and another 40 people hurt.

Predictably the nationalistic Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, vowed to punish the culprits this time, and laid blame on the airport corporation, who in turn have rejected any charge of  negligence.

The Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, likewise has been put in an exposed position.

Facing repeated upsets to public order is a hard call for a man prone to take off his shirt for beef-cake shots, to make hairy-chested talk, and in fact deliver terrible retribution against opponents of state power  – as in the wars over Chechnya.

Footnote:    See Le Monde, Paris, “Attentat de Moscou : ‘La politique russe dans le Caucase ne donne pas de résultat’. Pour la presse internationale, l’attentat meurtrier de Moscou révèle l’inefficacité de la lutte antiterroriste russe et l’échec de la politique de Moscou dans le Caucase”, (Moscow bomb attack: “Russia’s policy in the Caucasus will not work; according to the international press, the murderous attack shows the Russian anti-terrorist campaign is not working, and is a blow to the policy of Moscow in the Causasus region”), 25.1.11. http:www.lemonde.fr, (26.1.11).