EDITORIAL: Terrorism in Moscow

Monday's terrorist bombing in the international arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport in Moscow, one of the main gateways into Russia, caused terrible carnage, killing and injuring more than 200 people.

The victims include many foreigners from Britain, Germany and other countries. Russian law-enforcement authorities have put three members of a militant group based on the North Caucasus, a Muslim region in the south of Russia, on a wanted list for terrorism.

Monday's attack came within less than a year since the suicide bombings on Moscow's subway in March 2010 that killed 40 people.

At that time, a militant group seeking to establish a unified Islamic state in the North Caucasus region claimed responsibility for the subway bombings.

After 10 years of military operation in Chechnya, the Russian government declared in April 2009 that it had successfully contained armed rebel groups fighting for independence in the separatist republic in the North Caucasus.

But the two latest terrorist attacks in Moscow have highlighted the grim fact that these insurgents still have the power to perpetrate large-scale violence in the nation's capital.

In Russia a Lower House election and a presidential poll are slated to be held at the end of this year and in March next year, respectively.

Militant groups have indicated their intention to continue terrorist attacks as the political climate heats up in Russia in the months leading to these important elections.

Elements of these armed groups are also showing signs of plotting a terror attack during the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, to be held in Sochi, a Russian resort city located in the North Caucasus.

Terrorism, of course, is totally unforgivable for any reason.

But it is important to know that the North Caucasus, a predominantly Muslim area, has a history of fiercely resisting the Russian rule since the czarist era.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the separatist movement in the region led to military conflict over independence of the Chechen Republic.

Moscow responded by taking tough measures to crack down on separatist rebels in the North Caucasus, causing local residents to endure a huge sacrifice.

The Kremlin's iron-fisted oppression of the Chechen separatists set in motion a vicious cycle of hatred and revenge, creating a fertile breeding ground for terrorism.

What is worrisome is that Muslim militant groups have been expanding their areas of operation into other republics in the North Caucasus, such as Ingushetia and Dagestan, stepping up their terror campaigns.

Behind the spreading influence of Islamist militants in the region is strong resentment among local residents about the incompetent and corrupt local government chiefs imposed by Moscow and about serious poverty and unemployment due to the lack of competitive industries.

This resentment is also shared by young people from the North Caucasus living in Russian urban areas and has erupted recently in a wave of racial clashes with ardent young Russian nationalists hostile to non-Slavs in the capital and other parts of the nation. The situation is threatening to seriously undermine social stability in Russia.

If the Russian government is incapable of taking effective measures to stem the rising tide of terrorism and violence, there will be serious security concerns about the Sochi Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, which was recently awarded the right to host the premier international soccer event.

It is clear that Moscow's rigid hard-line policy to deal with the separatist rebels in the North Caucasus has reached its limits.

The Russian government needs to try to restore stability in the region by giving it as much autonomy as possible to placate local residents while implementing policy efforts to prop up the local economy and promote social welfare in the North Caucasus.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 26