Russia terror wave exposes weak intelligence

"At the moment the dynamic is on the side of the rebels," says Oksana Antonenko, a Russia specialist at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. "It's up to them to state the terms of where it's going to happen: It could happen on a plane, in the school; it could happen everywhere."

With Russians feeling increasingly vulnerable, questions are being asked about the capability of intelligence and security services, which - unlike their brethren in Israel - are not known for preventing many would-be attacks.

"No doubt in such cases the special services always bear responsibility, but things are not so simple," says Yury Kobaladze, a former KGB press secretary. "Even the most powerful and effective special services who are financed well, like in Israel, are sometimes helpless. Efforts of special services are not enough. Political decisions are necessary."

No group had claimed responsibility by press time. But since the mid-1990s, high-profile hostage situations - all of which have ended with some bloodshed, and sometimes botched Russian raids - have been a hallmark of separatist guerrillas in Chechnya. How the crisis is resolved will affect the standing of President Putin, who on Tuesday linked recent plane bombings to Al Qaeda, and has presided over Russia's war in Chechnya for five years.

Moscow's choice for Chechen leader, Alu Alkhanov, this week vowed to use his reported 73 percent landslide victory in last Sunday's vote - despite charges of fraud in the election - to "finish the rebels [and] eradicate them forever."

"[The Kremlin] could say this [wave of violence] is a result of their victory in Chechnya, that the enemy has resorted to terrorism against civilians because they have lost on the battlefield," says Felgenhauer. "But for the Russian people, they are getting real scared."

Moscow was already tense Tuesday night, after a female suicide bomber killed herself and nine others at the crowded Ryzhskaya subway entrance. Such attackers are often called Chechen "black widows," women who have lost husbands or fathers at the hands of Russian forces, and take their own lives in explosive revenge.

Wednesday, Russian defense chief Sergei Ivanov said "a war has been declared on us, in which the enemy is invisible and there is no front line."

Investigators in the dual plane crashes, which killed 89, are focusing on two Chechen women, who bought tickets at the the last minute, and whose bodies were unclaimed. Traces of explosive hexogen, used in previous Chechen attacks, were found to have detonated midair at the rear of each plane.

"It is only beginning to dawn on people, when it's happening every day," says Antonenko at IISS. "But when you look at the number of terrorist incidents happening [in Russia] in the last year alone - with the exception of Iraq, which is a war zone - it is by far the greatest number of anywhere in the world."

In addition to the 2002 theater siege in Moscow, the current school drama echoes another high-profile raid in June 1995. Back then, Chechen rebels under the command of Shamil Basayev - the warlord widely believed to be behind some recent anti-Russia attacks - took hundreds of hostages in a hospital in the southern town of Budyonnovsk. The takeover and a messy Russian response left 100 dead.

"Either this is a major miscalculation - taking innocent children hostage, which can provoke a strong backlash - or this group doesn't care very much about public opinion," says Antonenko.

She finds this act both sobering and likely to beget more violence. "This may be terrorism for terrorism's sake, rather than to try to achieve any clear political objective," she adds. [Editor's note: The original version incorrectly referred to Oksana Antonenko as a "he."]

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