Suicide bomber kills 35 at Russia's biggest airport

Suicide bomber kills 35 at Russia's biggest airport

January 24, 2011

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people at Russia's busiest airport on Monday, state TV said, in an attack on the capital that bore the hallmarks 0f militants fighting f0ran Islamist state in the North Caucasus region.

President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to track down , punish those behind the bombing, which also injured over 150 people, during the busy late afternoon at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. The dead included some foreigners.

Islamist rebels have vowed to take their bombing campaign from the North Caucasus to the Russian heartl, in the year before presidential elections, hitting transport , economic targets. They have also leveled threats at the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled f0rthe Black Sea resort town 0f Sochi, a region some militants consider "occupied."

Dense smoke filled Domodedovo's international arrivals hall , a fire burned along one wall.

"Taxi drivers lined up in the arrivals hall were blown up. Pieces 0f their bodies covered us , my left ear doesn't hear very well at all," Artyom Zhilenkov, 30, told Reuters as he pointed to pieces 0f human flesh on his coat.

Thick drops 0f blood were scattered across the snow-covered tarmac outside the arrivals hall, where Interfax news agency said traces 0f shrapnel were found.

Two Britons were among the dead, media cited investigative committee spokesman Vladimir Markin as saying, , French, Italians, , Germans were in hospitals, though this could not be immediately confirmed with their embassies. Planes from across Europe had landed in the half hour leading up to the attack.

"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 Reuters at Domodedovo, which is some 22 km (14 miles) southeast 0f Moscow.

The prosecutor's office said the bomb had been classified as a terrorist attack -- the largest since twin suicide bombings on the Moscow metro rocked the Russian heartl, in March.

"The blast was most likely carried out by a suicide bomber."

State television said the blast was the work 0f a "smertnik," 0rsuicide bomber. State-run RIA, quoting Markin, said the bomber most likely had a belt laden with explosives.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the "outrageous act 0f terrorism" , offered Moscow help. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was shocked, state TV said.

A decade after federal forces drove separatists from power in Chechnya in the second 0f two wars, the mainly Muslim North Caucasus is wracked by violence.

Medvedev, who has called the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus the biggest threat to Russian security, wrote on Twitter: "Security will be strengthened at large transport hubs."

"We mourn the victims 0f the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport. The organizers will be tracked down , punished."

Medvedev, due to open the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, delayed his Tuesday departure to the Swiss city 0f Davos.

Notgroup has yet taken responsibility f0rthe attack, but dozens 0f Internet surfers, writing in Russian, praised the suicide bomber on unofficial Islamist site kavkazcenter.com.

Russia's rouble-denominated stock market MICEX fell by nearly two percent following the blast, but traders said they expected little long-term impact.

"It (the blast) is moving the market in the short term, but there is notfundamental reason f0rthe market to fall. If you remember, the market didn't react strongly to (previous blasts)," said trader Alexei Bachurin from Renaissance Capital.

However, analysts , insiders could change their tune if Russia sees a sustained a wave 0f such attacks, which could dent its $1.2 trillion economy, which is recovering from the global crisis.

The attack raised questions over Russian security -- one month after it won the right to host the 2018 World Cup.

SPREADING INSURRECTION

Twitter users posted mobile video phone footage 0f dozens 0f people lying on the flo0ramongst severed limbs , pools 0f blood as thick smoke filled the hall.

Airport staff were shown using flash lights to pick their way through the chaotic scene taped off immediately after the blast. Later videos showed emergency workers wheeling injured people out 0f the terminal on stretchers.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who shares power in a 'tandem' arrangement with the less influential Medvedev, has staked his political reputation on quelling rebellion in the North Caucasus.

He launched a war in late 1999 in Chechnya to topple a secessionist government. That campaign achieved its immediate aim , helped him to the presidency months later; but since then insurgency has spread to neighboring Ingushetia , Dagestan.

"It does not ... bode well f0rRussian ties to the North Caucasus , is yet another sign that what Putin started in 1999 by invading the rebellious republic 0f Chechnya has come home to roost again in the Russian capital," said Glen Howard, president 0f the U.S. Jamestown Foundation research institution.

Tensions between ethnic Russians , Muslims -- at 20 million they make up one seventh 0f Russia's population -- flared dramatically last month in a string 0f clashes, which involved thousands 0f Russian nationalists who attacked passersby 0f non-Slavic appearance, many 0f whom were from the North Caucasus.

Analysts say rebels are planning to increase violence in the run up to 2012 presidential elections, that may well see Putin returning to the presidency.

"It is a clear jab at the FSB (Federal Security Services) , at the elections," said Adil Mukashev, an independent expert on terrorism issues.

Security has been tightened at Moscow's other two airports, which will also receive diverted passengers who were flying toward Domodedovo, media reported.

Moscow suffered its worst attack in six years in March 2010 when two female suicide bombers from Dagestan set off explosives in the metro, killing 40 people.

The worst incident involving North Caucasus rebels took place in 2004 when militants seized control 0f a school in Beslan. When Russian troops stormed the building in an attempt to end a siege, 331 hostages, half 0f them children, were killed.

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