Analysts have quickly pointed the finger at terrorists from Russia's vulnerable southern underbelly for the blast that killed 35 people at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, write ISABEL GORSTin Moscow, NEIL BUCKLEYand CATHERINE BELTON
MOSCOW IS bracing itself for a fresh terror campaign by Islamist militants after an explosion ripped through the international arrivals hall of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, killing at least 35 people and injuring more than 150.
Police put the city’s transport hubs on high alert after the second serious terrorist attack to strike the capital in a year.
There were no immediate admissions of responsibility, but prosecutors said they were launching an investigation into a terrorist attack “most likely” carried out by a suicide bomber, while analysts said the attack bore all the hallmarks of an Islamist terror campaign by militants from the north Caucasus.
Russian news wires quoted an anonymous law enforcement source as saying authorities believed they had identified the blown-off head of the suspected terrorist, who, they said, was of “Arab appearance”.
Analysts speculated that the blast pointed to the further spread of radical Islam in Russia’s volatile north Caucasus.
Attacks have spiralled over the past 12 months, even though Russia declared the war against terrorism in the separatist region of Chechnya over in 2009.
Worryingly for the Kremlin, they also suggested the attack could be, in part, a response to rioting last month in the centre of Moscow by Russian far-right groups wielding knives and iron bars who lashed out at passersby with a Caucasian appearance.
There was no immediate admission of responsibility for the attack and it could not be confirmed whether the explosion was the work of suicide bombers, as early reports indicated. Analysts however quickly pointed the finger at terrorists from Russia’s vulnerable southern underbelly.
“The attack is almost certainly the work of Islamist militants operating out of Russia’s north Caucasus region,” said Matthew Clement, Eurasia analyst at IHS Jane’s, an intelligence consultancy.
Russia has largely restored control over Chechnya, scene of two independence wars in the past 15 years, through its policy of “Chechenisation” – in effect, contracting out leadership of the republic to a local warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov.
However, as Mr Clement noted, remaining Chechen militants have joined forces with Islamists from neighbouring republics such as Dagestan, under the loose banner of the North Caucasus Emirate. This is a jihadist group calling for the creation of an Islamic caliphate across the north Caucasus.
“It is senseless to discuss whether this was Dagestanis or Chechens,” said Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center. “It is an answer to the complete failure of Kremlin policy in the Caucasus.”
It demonstrated, in particular, the failure of attempts by Alexander Khloponin, the Kremlin’s envoy to the north Caucasus and a former governor of Siberia’s huge Krasnoyarsk region, to improve social and economic conditions.
Sergei Markov, a parliament member from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said the attack was a result of the Russian leadership’s “weak policy in the Caucasus”.
The Kremlin had “lost”, he added, the moment the enemy switched from “separatists it was possible to fight with military methods”.
“Now the enemy has been replaced with the rise of radical international Islam, which has been able to penetrate deep into the region and use the social situation where the youth is without work, without education and without a future,” Mr Markov said.