MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
35 Killed in Suicide Bomber Attack at Moscow Airport
Moscow's Domodedovo airport A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and injured a further 60, many seriously, at Russia's biggest airport in an attack that bore the hallmarks of militants fighting for an Islamist state in the north Caucasus region.
A maximum state of alert has been declared at all airports, railway and bus stations across the country.
President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to track down and punish those behind the bombing, which also injured about 130 people, including foreigners, during the busy late afternoon at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. Dense smoke filled the hall and a fire burnt along one wall.
“The explosion was right near me, I was not hit but I felt the shock wave -people were falling,” said Yekaterina Alexandrova, a translator who was waiting in the crowded arrivals area to meet a client flying in from abroad.
Thick drops of blood were scattered across the snow-covered tarmac outside the arrivals hall, where traces of shrapnel were found.
“I heard a loud boom... we thought someone had just dropped something. But then I saw casualties being carried away,” a check-in attendant who gave her name as Elena told reporters at Domodedovo, which is some 22 km southeast of Moscow.
The Kremlin said Medvedev, who has called the insurgency in the north Caucasus the biggest threat to Russia's security, delayed his departure for the Davos international business forum in Switzerland.
The rebels have vowed to take their bombing campaign from the violence-wracked north Caucasus to the Russian heartland, hitting transport and economic targets. They have also levelled threats at the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled for Sochi, a region they claim as part of their “emirate.”
“Security will be strengthened at large transport hubs,” Medvedev wrote on Twitter. “We mourn the victims of the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport. The organisers will be tracked down and punished.”
No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but dozens of Internet surfers, writing in Russian, praised the suicide bomber on unofficial Islamist site kavkazcenter.com.
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Read all commentsUSA, it's plain to see. Russia and China should erase the USA from the face of the earth taking over the country. Putin knows it all, I hope they do something about it.
Jan 25th, 2011 - 10:08 pm 0The trouble with that scenario is that the Americas top middle and bottom
Jan 25th, 2011 - 11:28 pm 0would almost certainly be controlled by either china or Russia, now you can ask the afghans what they think of the Russians, and Taiwan what they think of the chi niece,
now if you ever get your way my friend, which country Russia or china would you like to see in Argentinean waters,
#2 Why not both ? there is more power in numbers, even democracy is set that way, I am sure Argentina can offer both 1/4 of the oil in Malvinas Argentina in exchange for a nuclear defence program, I would settle for 20 Chinese stealth airplanes a few stealth nuclear subs and 400 Russian Topol SS 27, with the price of oil at around $100 a barrel I am sure something could be worked out, a little is better than nothing, mind you with just a few head of states meetings the british military spending machine will start bleeding the toxic capial that brews in the belly of the paranoid beast. Something tells me that airlines and turism in USA, EU the Middle East and Russia are going to get into bumpier ride, what better reason for Russia then to trade in military defence equipment, China might need a little more incentive, but with its population growing past their resources, it's only matter of time.
Jan 26th, 2011 - 01:49 pm 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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