Russia said yesterday that last Monday’s horrific attack on a Moscow airport was staged by a suicide bomber from the volatile North Caucasus whose main target was arriving foreigners.
But officials stressed they could not reveal the 20-year-old man’s name or the republic he came from because they were still on the hunt for the organisers of the bloody strike.
“We have established the identity of the terrorist suicide bomber who set off the explosive,” Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in televised remarks.
“He turned out to be a 20-year-old native from one of the North Caucasus republics.”
Monday’s bombing at the country’s busiest airport shook Russia’s confidence just as it is gearing up to present a modern new face to a flood of foreign visitors expected here for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup.
Investigators said it was no accident that the bomb went off only moments after several European flights landed in the Russian capital.
“I would especially like to note that it was by no means an accident that the act of terror was committed in the international arrivals hall,” Markin said.
“According to investigators, the act of terror was first and foremost aimed against foreign citizens.”
The bomb at Domodedovo airport’s international arrivals hall killed eight foreigners – including two Austrians and one man each from Britain and Germany.
The second attack on Moscow in less than a year claimed the lives of 35 people in total and prompted President Dmitry Medvedev to sack several transport security officials.
Medvedev has trumpeted a modernisation message that aims to convince foreign investors that Russia is cleaning up its image and becoming more Westernised.
But the blast forced the Kremlin chief to rewrite parts of his keynote address at the Davos World Economic Forum and admit before the world community that Russia was still unable to eradicate terror attacks.
Most of Medvedev’s wrath has thus far been directed at the Moscow airport’s management and a series of mid-ranking officials who are responsible for individual security measures.
The country’s powerful Federal Security Service (FSB) – which was once led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – has thus far avoided all criticism for allowing yet another security failure.