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Terrorists Bomb Moscow Airport 640

jayme0227 writes "Terrorists detonated a bomb at Moscow's busiest airport on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding another 152, Russian authorities said. President Dmitry Medvedev, who called the bombing a terrorist attack, ordered additional security at Moscow's other airports and transportation hubs, and Moscow police went on high alert in case of additional bombs." According to the NY Times, "The airport remained open on Monday evening, and passengers continued to flow through the hall where the bomb had exploded."
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Terrorists Bomb Moscow Airport

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  • Here we'd have closed the airport for days to make it look like we were doing something. There, they just pick up the pieces and move on. Guess who's not going to still be running things in twenty years?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MightyYar ( 622222 )

      Here we'd have closed the airport for days to make it look like we were doing something.

      Don't you think that has just a little to do with them being "used" to terrorism? The British didn't stop everything when the IRA was blowing stuff up, either.

      I don't think I'm on board that our skin needs to be as thick as the Russians. It is admirable that they can move past such an event, but it's actually quite sad as well.

    • Guess who's not going to still be running things in twenty years?

      Russia?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by somersault ( 912633 )

      Shouldn't they at least destroy their economy again with a prolonged war or something like that? How about a bit of racial profiling and cancer inducing body scanners? Seriously, where's the fun in bombing a country if they're not going to shit themselves?

    • by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:15PM (#34984766)

      The US hasn't had terrorism in apartment buildings, urban mass transit systems or transportation hubs like Russia has, so you can't say what the American response would be.

      However when there was a mass shooting at LAX in 2002, they didn't shut down the airport.

    • by hawguy ( 1600213 )

      Here we'd have closed the airport for days to make it look like we were doing something. There, they just pick up the pieces and move on. Guess who's not going to still be running things in twenty years?

      I was struck by the same thing. In the USA, the affected airport terminal would be closed for days if not weeks, causing millions or tens of millions of dollars in travel disruptions with likely flight disruption across the country as airlines reschedule flights around the damaged terminal, further compounding the economic damage from the attack.

    • by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:44PM (#34985170)

      In fairness, a hallmark of Al Qaeda is to blow something up, wait for first responders to arrive, and then blow it up again. So, securing the area might reduce loss of life in the event there were a second bomb.

  • by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:51PM (#34984376) Journal

    Sacrificing civil liberties does not prevent terrorism.

    • "Sacrificing civil liberties does not prevent terrorism."

      The only level of violence and reprisal sufficient to deter terrorism is at the level of what are called "war crimes", so only societies who are both powerful and ruthless can defeat (serious) terrorists.

      The only counter to people who embrace being destroyed for their cause is to destroy an overwhelming number those they are fighting for. To the extent that societies embrace the "rights" of their mortal enemies, they are unable to fight.

      Limiting the r

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:52PM (#34985278)

      Civil rights cannot be "sacrificed" or bargained with in any manner. The very notion smacks of tyranny, and fosters a conformist ideology where it is expected that governments cherry-pick the civil rights they "allow" for "their" people.

      But I never sacrificed anything after 9/11 -- did you? Of course not. I don't know anybody that did. What actually happened is that your civil rights were stolen. from you. Denied. Oppressed. Attacked. You and I didn't have a say in it at all, and neither did the pawns who cheered it on. There was no "sacrifice" in any of this, only the elite at the top of the pyramid playing god with powers that no mortal man is worthy of.

      Let's call a spade a spade: civil rights are either honored or oppressed. There is no picking and choosing.

    • That's what we SHOULD learn from this. The US government, on the other hand, will just foist more security theater on the population by restricting access to baggage claim areas.
    • by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:58PM (#34985388) Journal

      In fact, this is precisely the scenario that we've been talking on Slashdot for so long - the terrorists detonated the bomb in the crowded area right before the first controlled checkpoint in the airport (customs).

  • by itsownreward ( 688406 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:51PM (#34984384)
    Just think about this next time you're queued up forever in the security theater line waiting to get your junk touched. It seems like the ideal place to attack an airport and get lots of casualties.
    • Then they should have the bomb sniffing dogs sniffing you. Much less invasive and will ACTUALLY find any bomb residue/traces.
      • by radtea ( 464814 )

        Much less invasive and will ACTUALLY find any bomb residue/traces

        Right, because ONLY Terrorists(TM) have any traces of explosives on them, and not any of the mining engineers, chemists, etc, etc, etc, who happen to be passing through the airport!

        Seriously: I've worked for a couple of mining and geological exploration companies and to here them tell it all these "anti-terrorist" measures do nothing but make their lives less convenient.

        If I were a Terrorist(TM) I'd get a job with a mining company, get a letter from my employer certifying that I handle explosives, and then

        • by Cwix ( 1671282 )

          I was a combat engineer in the Army. Trust me, you don't want to have ANY residue on you if your going anywhere near a federal building/airport.

        • If you have easy access to explosives, you probably SHOULD be inspected more closely, don't you think? Of course it is only a matter of time before we get an "ass bomber" smart enough to lock themself in the lavatory before attempting to light the fuse.
          • by at10u8 ( 179705 )

            If you have easy access to explosives, you probably SHOULD be inspected more closely, don't you think?

            Household products are sufficient, so who does not have easy access?

    • Just think about this next time you're queued up forever in the security theater line waiting to get your junk touched.

      Usually people don't wait in line in order to get their junk touched...

    • in the security theater line

      This is a straw man. There will be lines at the airport, with or without "security theater". They can just as easily blow you up in a crowded jetway.

      No one is selling the airport gate screening as a way to make the airport safer - they are selling as a way to make the plane (and potential targets on the ground) safer. We can argue whether or not this is effective, but there's no reason to set up a bogus argument.

      • by Cwix ( 1671282 )

        All the terrorists would have to do is blow up two security lines at two different airports, and then "leak" info that there were at least 5 bombers. Air travel would shut down. TSA would then receive enough money to strip every person who wanted to fly.

        Perhaps wed be forced to fly naked. Does bring up the possibility to have a strip club like atmosphere on airplanes though. Don't forget to bring lot of ones.

    • While this remains a fair point, this bombing was in the arrivals hall, not in the queue for security checks. But yes, sadly, it was only a matter of time before someone, somewhere decided to bomb one of the many areas of an airport you can get to without security checks. Although AFAIK, numerous Russian airports have the capability to operate checkpoints at entrances.
    • One article I read said the bomb went off in the baggage claim area, while the CNN article states it was detonated at the entrance to the international arrivals section. I've been through Domodedovo a few times, but without more details it is difficult to know if the bomb was detonated in the "secure" area past the security checkpoints or simply where everyone waits to greet passengers as they clear customs.
  • Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Richy_T ( 111409 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:52PM (#34984400) Homepage

    "The airport remained open on Monday evening, and passengers continued to flow through the hall where the bomb had exploded."

    Good to see the terrorists haven't won everywhere...

    • Already +5? Not surprising. I would prefer to see +100 Common Sense, though.

    • by thynk ( 653762 )

      I've been in that airport and the first impression I had was the guards smoking under the "No Smoking" sign, with an ashtray there. My last impression (as we were getting ready to come home) was that they had a little old lady cleaning the men's room. Not only was it open, no one seemed bothered by it.

      • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @03:16PM (#34985644)
        My last impression (as we were getting ready to come home) was that they had a little old lady cleaning the men's room. Not only was it open, no one seemed bothered by it.

        I'm curious. Exactly why should anyone be bothered by it? Was she too old to be working and should have been on retirement? Or is your junk so special that you think a little old lady is getting turned on by seeing you handle it?

    • >ood to see the terrorists haven't won everywhere...

      That's because a lot of the people in Eastern block countries where still oppressed till the late/early 80/90's and fear is what they lived with everyday so they accepted it as port of their daily life.. Here in Canada/US people are just spoiled and the effects of WW2 have long withered away so they look to the gov for protection which the gov is more then happy to use that as a way to control and take away basic rights.

    • by kellyb9 ( 954229 )
      Alternatively, one could say that the terrorists have won a lot in Russia, and that’s why it’s not too big of a deal... I don't know for sure, but I'm not going to be so quick to jump to conclusions.
  • Beef it up (Score:5, Funny)

    by burris ( 122191 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:53PM (#34984406)

    Clearly, it is time to move the security checkpoint out into the parking lot.

  • Not exactly WWII (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:58PM (#34984492)

    The last time Russia was fighting for its territorial integrity 24 million Russians died. The terrorists have severely underestimated what it takes to frighten the Russian leadership into making concessions. You see, as long as all the terrorists die, the Russians don't really care. If you look at the Beslan massacre or the Moscow Theatre Seige, there was very little concern for the hostages, many of whom died during the raids by the security forces. It seems the main thing the government accomplished in both of the raids was killing all the terrorists and minimal casualties to security forces. It's probably modeled after things like Stalin's decision to not evacuate Stalingrad when the Nazis invaded.

    • The real question is whether or not this style of combating terrorism is more effective than others. The United States hasn't had many large-scale hostage situations, but in smaller situations there's definitely more inclination towards negotiation and making sure that hostages survive. If if it is true that the Russian method of dealing with hostage situations is to resolve the situation by terminating those perpetuating it, does it make such incidents less likely to occur?

      I'm not even sure how we can c
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        The real question is whether or not this style of combating terrorism is more effective than others.

        It's a hell of a lot more effective then hiding under your bed watching a colour coded "be afraid" signal.

        Or wasting trillions on a war that only delivers more eager recruits into the hands of your enemies by destroying their homes, families and livelihoods.

        You just don't get what this says do you.

        The Russian government have just given the organisers of this attack an effective middle finger whilst

  • I can see Russia moving armies and throwing bombs ...
    meanwhile in Russia : nearly 100 traffic deaths A DAY. http://www.car-accidents.com/country-car-accidents/russia-car-crash-accidents.html [car-accidents.com]

    • by BZ ( 40346 )

      > meanwhile in Russia : nearly 100 traffic deaths A DAY.

      Speaking of meaningless statistics, in the US there are over 100 traffic deaths a day.

      Meaningless because it's not accounting for population differences, differences in car ownership rates, differences in the kinds of vehicles on the roads, differences in the roads, etc, etc.

      So other than "a bunch of people dead every year", it doesn't mean much...

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:07PM (#34984630)

    It's not surprising that these idiots were able to bomb the place. Whilst there's always a guy at the door with a metal detector / baggage scanning machine when you walk in everyone just walks right through so you're not actually being scanned unless they specifically stop you (never happens unless they *really* don't like they way you look. Now of course that will change for a while... but Russia is such a big place with so many landmarks that can be targeted that there's no way to stop some lunatics from blowing themselves up in public and killing people if they're really keen on it.

    The one difference worth noting is that in Russia/Israel/India etc... they just get back to work, in USA they would've created some 500 million $ memorial and immortalized the event for at least a decade.

  • We've often posed the question on /., what happens when someone hits a security checkpoint? Do we add security checkpoints for security checkpoints? All we're doing is lumping people up. Given population densities, there will ALWAYS be places where people congregate. Do we go to a system of armed guards in every public place, Israeli-style? Admit that once someone has a working bomb, it's almost impossible to stop them from getting it to somewhere with lots of people and setting it off, and then invade

  • But somehow I got redirected to the daily beast.
  • by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:18PM (#34984794)
    I think that this demonstrates how utterly pointless most of airport security we've implemented truly is now that terrorists have shown that they're completely willing to blow themselves up and kill hundreds of people before getting on the plane. Why go to all the hard work of actually getting on a plane when there's plenty of people queued up at a security checkpoint that you can easily kill and cause just as much panic and terror?

    There's no easy way to prevent this, unless the security checkpoint is at the front door, in which case you still have a large queue of people, even more miserable and pissed off that they have to stand inline outside. Even if they made people strip naked, it still wouldn't stop the first clever terrorist to shove the bomb up his ass.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      See the report from the person who was actually at the airport. It seems that actually in Russia's case it really was security theater since metal detectors were optional, not mandatory as we have here. So our security would have prevented this attack (in the terminal anyway).

    • by TheL0ser ( 1955440 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @03:03PM (#34985470)

      still wouldn't stop the first clever terrorist to shove the bomb up his ass.

      Since when is shoving anything up your ass considered "clever"?

  • ... Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for this? Yes, I went there.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:23PM (#34984868)

    Terrorist attacks are horrible.

    I've personally been in areas in Israel where massive bombs exploded killing and maiming dozens of people, weeks before the incident. It's a fact of life.

    There are bomb scares every day in Israel. Woops. Grandpa left his grocery bag unattended next to an ATM. Area is closed off.
    You can see people waiting impatiently, tapping their feet with a "come on get on with it" look at the bomb sapper in full gear is tippy toeing to the bag (abandoned grocery bag),
    detonating it in minutes. Once the all clear is rang out, as the bomb sapper is nervously taking his bomb proof helmet off, sitting on sidewalk, slowly pulling out a cigarette, people are practically pushing and shoving next to him,
    right next to where the "bomb" was, queuing to use the ATM.

    I saw this scenario happening a few times.

    People get on with their lives.

    security theatre is dangerous, and only common sense, intelligence, and self-policing will work.
    Make sure you design public spaces with heightened terrorist attack value (e.g. airport) well designed to lower casualty count.

  • That most of the posts here are about the security practices of airports in different countries rather than even commenting on the terrorist attack itself?

    You'd think we'd be marginally upset about some individuals blowing up a bunch of other individuals. Maybe even interested in what caused it, where it came from, who did it.

    Instead, we just argue about TSA.

    Not saying we shouldn't argue about TSA... but perhaps that's not the only thing there is to argue about.

  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @02:36PM (#34985042)
    First of all I would like to express my condolences to all the victims of this senseless act of brutality. Second, I would like to express my respect for the mature manner in which the Russians handled this. I've always said regarding the US that we have reached maturity as a society only when someone can commit an atrocity and no laws or procedures need to change as a result. Terrorism is all about getting a reaction; if you react to the terrorists, then the terrorist have won.
  • Assholes. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PinchDuck ( 199974 ) on Monday January 24, 2011 @04:17PM (#34986550)

    Slaughtering innocent people who are just trying to get from point A to point B won't further your aims, won't garner any sympathy, and certainly won't win you the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. You aren't freedom fighters, heroes, or martyrs, you're just assholes killing innocent people.

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