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By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
The Moscow subway system is, after Tokyo's, the world's second-busiest, carrying over 7 million passengers on an average workday.
With 180 stations to choose from on Monday, suicide bombers picked two of the busiest stations, both of them perhaps for symbolic reasons ― one under the headquarters of the feared Federal Security Service, the other serving Gorky Park.
The bombers were believed to be Black Widows, the female relatives of men slain by the Russian security services in the Caucasus and easily persuaded to take revenge.
The first bomb went off just before 8 a.m., the other about 40 minutes later, both as the trains were preparing to load and unload passengers.
The planning proved horribly lethal. As of late Monday, 38 were reported dead and at least 72 injured, several of them critically. Other than blind revenge, the tactical motives of the bombers are hard to divine.
They did, however, succeed in infuriating the Russian leadership, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, no stranger to extreme measures, vowing that this crime, ``terrible in its consequences and heinous in its manner," will not go unavenged. ``Terrorists will be destroyed."
The attacks are believed to be, probably correctly, linked to radical Islamic separatist movements intent on setting up an independent emirate in Chechnya and the North Caucasus regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.
To add to the intrigue, the separatist groups are increasingly linked to al-Qaida, and al-Qaida-linked Web sites quickly boasted about the bombings and wished the blessings of heaven on those who slaughtered the random innocents who had the bad luck to board the wrong subway car.
Moscow last was victimized by terrorists in 2004 when separate suicide bombings killed more than 50. Unhappily, the radical Islamist Web sites indicate this is only the start of a campaign to make Russian forces abandon the Caucasus.
Putin came to power in part because of his brutal suppression of Chechnya. He does not have the constraints in fighting terrorism that leaders in the West do. He is also not one to brush off a direct challenge to his authority or the success of his policies.
By 4 p.m. the two stations had been scrubbed clean and reopened and the trains were running normally.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer of Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).
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