Islam just, well, inspires people. Another convert goes homicide bomber, in an act of righteous piety.
Russians name Muslim convert as prime suspect for airport bombing Independent hat tip Armaros
Security sources have named an ethnic Russian Christian who converted to Islam as the prime suspect in Monday's deadly suicide bombing at a Moscow airport.
Notice the pathetic Independent inclusion of the word "Christian" when the homicide bomber was a Muslim convert shaheed.
Sources close to the investigation said that Vitaly Razdobudko, a 32-year-old from the southern Russian city of Stavropol, was being sought in connection with the attack, the Kommersant newspaper reported yesterday. It is not known whether Razdobudko is suspected of being the actual suicide bomber or an accomplice.
Razdobudko went missing in October last year, with his wife, according to police sources in Stavropol. He is believed to have been an Orthodox Christian, of Slavic appearance, who later converted to Islam.
The bomb, which ripped through the arrivals hall of Domodedovo Airport on Monday afternoon, killed 35 people including one Briton and left 180 injured. Russian authorities have released little information, and eyewitness accounts diverge wildly. Some speak of a male suicide bomber, some of a female bomber; in some testimonies, the bomber detonated a suicide vest, while in others the bomb was in a suitcase.
The first official statement about the attack came yesterday afternoon, when a representative of Russia's Anti-Terror Committee denied that security services had learnt of a possible attack before Monday, and attacked journalists for speculating on who might have been behind the blast. "Only the Investigative Committee can say what and how things happened, and everyone else should be silent," a spokesman for the committee said.
The Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who in the aftermath of the attack said that "revenge is inevitable", has already said that the attack had no links to Chechnya. Russia's Islamic insurgency has in recent years spread across the North Caucasus region to neighbouring republics. It is nominally controlled by Doku Umarov, the self-styled "Emir of the Caucasus", but experts believe that different groups function autonomously in different regions.
Another emir, another slaughter.
In this case, suspicion has fallen on a cell called the Nogai Brigade, which is thought to operate around Stavropol and in the northern part of neighbouring Dagestan. Police said they were looking for 10 members of the group, which is also suspected of being behind a failed attack on New Year's Eve, when a female suicide bomber was believed to be preparing to attack crowds of Russians celebrating the New Year on Manezh Square near the Kremlin.
Instead she blew herself up during the day in a Moscow suburb. Police think the bomb was detonated accidentally, probably by a mobile phone.
