Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday called terror the most serious threat to Russia and vowed to “liquidate” the militants behind the Moscow airport bomb blast that killed 35 people.
Medvedev also instructed his government to probe whether those responsible for ensuring the country’s transportation security had properly performed their jobs.
He said clear breaches in security had allowed a suspected female suicide bomber linked to Russia’s Northern Caucasus to slaughter people at Domodedovo and he demanded answers from Domodedovo over how it let the bomber wander into arrivals and set off a charge just as passengers from several international flights were arriving.
Sources told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that the attack bore all the hallmarks of militants from the overwhelmingly Muslim Caucasus region who have been behind a string of attacks in Moscow over the last years.
The bomber may have been a woman, the agency said, although initial reports had said it was a man in his 30s.
Russian investigators said on Monday they had found a head of “Arab appearance” that was initially presumed to have belonged to the suicide bomber.
No Taiwanese was injured in Monday’s bombing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
There are about 300 Taiwanese living in Russia, ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said, including 150 students, 50 businessmen and dozens of diplomatic and trade officials. Seventy-five of the students and 40 businessmen live in the Greater Moscow area, he said.
The ministry’s travel alert level for the Russian Federation remained yellow, the second lowest level in its four color system, Chang said, but the ministry was monitoring the latest situation and would raise the alert level if needed.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
‘CRITICAL MOMENT’: Any delay in the passage of the remaining funds would weaken Taiwan’s security and play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the AIT said While welcoming the Legislative Yuan’s approval of a supplementary defense budget, the US Department of State said that further delays to Taiwan military spending are a “concession” to China. The remarks came after the legislature on Friday passed the budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of military equipment from the US, with total spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.82 billion). One package allocates NT$300 billion for arms sales approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, while the other sets aside NT$480 billion for an arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The
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