Russia's Agony

The carnage and the fear left in the wake of one suicide bombing after another leaves that indelible message, that Islamists will not be contained too readily. Despite the atrocities committed by dedicated jihadists intent on blackmailing the world into compliance with their agenda of accepting that Muslim-majority countries around the world must submit to Sharia law and Islamism, countries under attack that are not Muslim-dominated continue to treat the issues with kid gloves.

Russia does not. Her troops have been sent to Chechnya, the north Caucasus and other Muslim-insurgent hot-spots within her territory and sphere of influence, to quell the insistence of the Islamists. Much good it has done Russia. Some of the most horrific attacks against non-Muslim targets have taken place in Russia.

Certainly the 2002 attack on the Moscow theatre by 50 armed Chechens, ending with the deaths of 130 of the hostages was one of those. Over a two-and-a-half-day siege (the Nord-Ost siege) 850 hostages were held, and the siege lifted only when Russian special forces pumped a chemical agent into the ventilation system and raided the theatre, freeing most of the hostages and killing 39 of the attackers.

And the world watched their television news with growing apprehension and horror as details of the Beslan massacre, a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people, including 777 children, ended in the deaths of over 380 of the hostages, 186 of them children, when Ingush and Chechen terrorists invaded the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in 2004. The Russian special forces were accused of heavy handedness in their violent response.

But that tragedy and others became responsible for a hardening of the Russian position toward Islamist jihadists, and went a long way to strengthening the retributive options of then-President Vladimir Putin. Yet strangely enough, Moscow has often aligned itself with Islamist forces as long as their violent agenda does not include attacks on Russia itself.

When those forces, like Hamas and Iran threaten Israel, for example, Russia finds it possible to be generous and helpful to those agents of violence. Of course that position is not all that far off Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates who fund terrorist activity as long as it is not aimed at their regimes. Inevitably, that too will come to pass.

In the interim, Russia has faced another disaster on its soil, with an attack on the international arrivals hall at Moscow's modern showpiece Domodedovo Airport. A fairly brazen one at that with the bomber, explosive-case in hand, entering the the arrivals terminal from the outside; so much for security. In fact, there had been prior notice of the attack a week previously.

The response to which was a problem in and of itself since despite that notice the bomber was somehow able to elude security and bring into the arrivals lounge 5 kilograms of explosives. The airport is the busiest in Russia, carrying over 22 million passengers a year, with 77 airlines using the international airport.

There goes Russia's reputation for safety and security in the face of constant threats from the north Caucasus. Yet another tragedy for the country and its population, with 35 people dead, and 170 injured, many seriously, bleeding from shrapnel wounds.