Volgograd train station rocked by suicide bombing: Oksana Aslanova was suicide bomber at Volgograd railway station?
Agha Iqrar Haroon
Observer for Central Asia and Eastern Europe
An investigative look into reports about bombing at Volgograd railways station indicates that Volgograd has a strong terrorist networking that provides explosive material including suicide jackets to Islamist terrorists who arrive in city barehanded then they provide explosive material for detonation their themselves. Oksana Aslanova was suicide bomber at Volgograd railway station or there was a man and Oksana Aslanova is still at large? This question is yet to be resolved by investigators. Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is a railway hub on the route connecting European Russia with central Asia
Reports suggested that there were more than three terrorists present on the scene—two men and one woman. Around 10kg TNT was used in the blast and investigative agencies believe that suicide bomber was Oksana Aslanova, a 26-year-old Tabasaran national from Turkmenistan and he reached from Daghestan barehanded and was provided explosive from Volgograd. Oksana Aslanova was married several times but only among the circle of Russian Jihadis. Oksana Aslanova was reportedly born June 16, 1987 in Turkmenistan. She later moved to live in Russia’s North Caucasian Republic of Dagestan. She settled in the city of Derbent at 15/41, Rasulbekov Street and studied at the Dagestan State Pedagogic University. She first married with Mansur Velibekov, a Chechen radical and member of the Southern (Yuzhnaya) jihadi group. Mansur was killed in 2008 and then she was married to group leader leader Gasan Abdulayev. Observers of terrorism in Russia are not confirmed that Gasan was killed or disappeared but it is stated that Gasan was lost in action and Oksana Aslanova was then re-merried to Israpil Validzhanov who is known among Jihadi circles as Amir Hasan. He was killed in action on March 18, 2011 near the Dagestani village of Tashkapur.
There is no information about Oksana Aslanova since March 8, 2012 and there were reports she underwent training as a suicide bomber since her disappearance. Her ID was reported as follows: passport series 6706 No 719598, issued on Aug. 25, 2007 by the Federal Migration Service in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region. She was registered at the address: 12/34, 1 Mikrorayon, city of Raduzhny in Nizhnevartovsk district in the Region of Tyumen. Police found an unexploded hand-grenade and a pistol at the scene of bombing that indicates that at least one more terrorist was there covering her— the typical style of Al-Qaeeda training . CCTV footage of Railway Station also showed a man who might have been behind the bombing.
Why Volgograd has become hub of terrorists in Russia?
Volgograd is a major transportation hub in southern Russia, and this probably explains why it has been a target for bombings on two occasions in the last few months. Apparently this city is attractive to terrorists as it is a major transportation interchange hub in the south of Russia. The terrorist act carried out there has inevitably caused wide-scale reverberations, and that is the objective of the criminals. One can go to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities from that station, but it isn’t very likely that the female suicide bomber, with more than 10 kilograms of TNT on her, would have ventured a long-distance trip on a train or bus to Volgograd and this factor indicate that there is a well-organized militant group based in Volgograd. There are most likely people in Volgograd who can meet an evildoer, supply her with explosives, and send her to a crowded place to carry out a terrorist act.
Investigators are of the view that metal detector walk through gates of railway station are less effective when looking for plastic explosives or the so-called “composites,” which have insignificant amounts of metal in them.
