By Vestnik Kavkaza
Volgograd investigators found out that the suspected terrorist Naida Asiyalova initially planned a terrorist attack in the city trade center Aquarelle, but saw that there were few visitors in the mall and changed her target.
“The situation is very difficult and indicative,” Vasily Aksyonov, expert in the field of transport security, says. “We are talking about whether it is possible to secure means of transportation in general. In principle, yes, and the experience of a number of foreign countries and of our own country tells us that it is possible. It is possible to develop a system of measures, implement it and support it in a necessary way and the results will be very positive. There is a real possibility of preventing such acts, even in the severe conditions that some countries are in. Let us look for example at Israel, their experience comes to mind in this regard. Yes, they have achieved a lot and they know a lot in this sphere.”
At the same time, in Volgograd the system of measures has not been successful, according to Aksyonov: “As a result of our investigation, we will receive information about where, in what place there was a failure. Anti-terrorist security of transportation, objects of the transportation system and infrastructure implies a complex of measures which are exercised on a daily, hourly, minute basis by a great number of people, professionals, as well as by those who are directly and indirectly involved in it - by us, the passengers. We also are participants of this work and we shall never forget about it, wherever we are - in the metro, on a plane, on a bus. Yes, we shall remember that we are part of a system which is by its very nature dangerous - any transport is considered an object of major hazard based on its technical character. To those who have become victims of such events it is not important whether they were a result of a terrorist attack or a technical failure - but it is important for all of us.”
Aksyonov says that the suicide bomber has been trained somewhere, equipped somewhere. She arrived in Volgograd from Makhachkala, and could have travelled even further: “On such a long stretch there must have been all the opportunities to notice this person and take recourse in the corresponding preventive measures in his regard. There are many opportunities, many means to do that, as specialists call them, of an organizational and technical character. There is equipment that allows explosives to be detected from a distance and from close by, despite all the measures used to camouflage them. Yes, it is all possible, but somewhere they did not function, somewhere most probably they were absent.”
Recalling the words of Vladimir Putin at the meeting with transportation workers on November 10 in Novosibirsk, that transport security was the priority task in transportation, Aksyonov says: “Unfortunately, by now it has not become a priority, the president has not been heard by certain bodies and officials - I am not talking about the law enforcement bodies. They are carrying out their duties honestly and religiously. I would like to talk about the provision system. The Law on Transport Security which we are following and which is now being used in this concrete case is the 16th law from 2007 which provides creation of measures aimed at providing transportation security for third parties and those who might, God forbid, become injured parties in every case. The law exists, the government has created a special function to provide transportation security, but it has not been secured financially. Financial economic bodies have not yet, even for this year's budget, introduced a line about transportation security. These are the direct or indirect results of this stance.”
