|
Russian planes crash : Bombers linked to Al-Qaeda |
 |
August 24 became Russia’s 9/11. It was the first time that civilian aircraft came under terrorist attack in Russia’s post-Soviet history.
One of the two Russian planes which crashed simultaneously after takeoff from the Moscow airport on August 25 was brought down by terrorists, according to Russian investigators who found traces of explosives in the wreckage of the plane. Two of the Chechen women travelling on the plane are said to have carried out the explosion. Mystery surrounds about the second plane’s crash. But, giving credence to the statements of air traffic controllers that they received an SOS from the pilot about the plane being hijacked, a report says the plane was probably being hijacked to Sochi where President Putin was holidaying and the Russian jets intercepted it and downed it. These sources say since more than 30 passengers were travelling by that plane, the Russian authorities are refusing to admit it.
Both airliners, a TU-134, flying to Volgograd with 35 passengers and a crew of eight, and a TU-154 carrying 38 passengers and eight crew crashed on the night of Aug 25 within minutes of each other after taking off from the same Domodedovo airport. The first plane crashed near Tula and the second which was heading for Sochi , went missing near Roston-on-Don, a town some 100 km south of Moscow. On one of the airliners, a hijack alarm was triggered.
The first impression of several security experts was that the simultaneous crash of two airliners which had taken off from the same airport looked like a terrorist attack, planned by Chechen or Al-Qaeda terrorists on the eve of elections in Chechnya. Though the authorities are downplaying the possibility of terror attack in view of the mid-term presidential polls in Chechnya, an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group in Russia has claimed responsibility for the attack. And investigators have found traces of explosives in the wreckage of one of the two airliners. A spokesman for the FSB which has been entrusted by President Putin to investigate the cause of the crashes has found explosive traces on parts of the Tu-154 plane which went down in Rostov Region in southern Russia. The explosive was identified as “hexogen” of the same type that was used to blow up several apartment houses in Russia in 1999 which killed over 300 people The explosions were then blamed on Chechen separatists. Some former pilots and civil aviation experts say that the wreckage of the Tu-154 was strewn over a very large area in the Rostov region - over an area of 40 square kilometres. This clearly indicates that the ill-fated airliner had exploded and disintegrated at the high altitude instead of hitting the ground and exploding. Under suspicion are two Chechen women who travelled on the aircraft; they were the only two passengers about whom no friend or relatives enquired about. The Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, has denied any involvement in the plane crashes, but there are many rebel groups in Chechnya that he does not control. For example, the leader of an Al-Qaeda liked militant group, Islambouli Brigade, has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the two airliners. In a statement, the militant group said it had blown up the two planes to avenge the killing of Muslim Chechens. “Our Mujahideen, with God’s grace, succeeded in directing the first low which will be followed by a series of other operations in a wave to extend support and victory to our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ad other Muslim areas which suffer from Russian faithlessness”, the statement said.
Political observers say the same group had claimed responsibility for last month’s attempt to assassinate Pakistan’s new Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, when he was campaigning in a by-election. Russian sources say the Islambouli Brigade was led by Mohammed Islambouli, younger brother of Lt. Khaled Islambouli, leader of the group of soldiers who assassinated the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, during a military parade in Cairo in 1981. Lt. Khaled Islambouli was tried and executed in 1982. Islambouli was captured by US commandos in December 2001, but for some reason was released. At the end of December 2001, Arab sources said, Islambouli was a field commander in Chechnya and canvassed for financial aid in Europe in return for sending Chechen militants to West Asia.
Other than the terrorist theory, another version of the crashes making the waves in Moscow is that the airliners had been part of a September 11-style hijack-cum-suicide attack whose target was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Independent experts are quoted as saying that the night high-altitude disasters were more likely caused perhaps by interception by Russian air defences aiming to prevent terrorist hijackers from using the aircraft in a 9/11 style attack. Fuelling the theory that Putin was the target is that one of the planes that went down was headed for Sochi where Putin was vacationing at the time. The other plane was also headed south when it fell from radar screens. Earlier this month, a senior Russian air defence official, Col.Gen. Yuri Solovyov, warned that terrorists could hijack a plane at any Moscow airport and reach the Kremlin in about 40 seconds.
And if it was terrorism and not the interception and destruction of the planes by Russian air defences, observers say, it fits into a pattern of deadly bombings of buildings, trains and subway cars that has plagued Russia since the latest war against separatist Chechnya began in 1999.
Political observers say there is little doubt either that the attack has Chechen roots. Chechnya is the one place in Russia where terrorists are active. Despairing of reach out to the West with their raids on Russian troops in the region, rebels have acted on their longstanding threat to take the war beyond Chechnya. By downing two Russian planes five days before a presidential poll in the region, rebels clearly wanted to demonstrate the strength of their resistance and to refute Moscow’s claims of having brought the situation under control. The attacks are a fresh blow to President Putin in his efforts to pacify the rebellious region. These efforts suffered a major blow in May when the Kremlin-backed President of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed by a bomb during a V-day parade in the capital, Grozny, just six months after his election.
Putin now needs to take a hard look at the efficiency of Russian intelligence and law enforcement agencies in dealing with Chechen terrorism and to review security at Russian airports, which appears to be lax.
|
