[Wow!] Bombing at Moscow's Busiest Airport Kills at Least 31

[BROWNNOSE]

Moscow officials believe a suicide bombing is behind a terrifying explosion today at the city's busiest airport that killed at least 31 people and wounded 168.

Three men are thought to have plotted the explosion, the Russian news agency Interfax reported. The blast had the power of seven kilograms of TNT, Interfax added.


"From the preliminary information we have, it was a terror attack," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told officials in a televised briefing after today's blast. He also scolded officials for their failure to prevent the attack, The New York Times said.

President Barack Obama condemned the attack, calling it "an outrageous act of terrorism against the Russian people."

In an unconfirmed report, eyewitnesses told the Vesti 24 TV channel that two terrorists blew themselves up and had apparently been disguised as passengers in the international terminal of Domodedovo Airport.

A video apparently taken shortly after the explosion showed graphic images of the dead and wounded at the smoke-filled, chaotic airport. Officials said they could not be immediately sure of the number of dead and wounded because of all the thick smoke. The blast occurred at 4:32 p.m. local time in the arrivals area.

Eyewitnesses described a harrowing scene.

"I heard a loud bang, saw plastic panels falling down from the ceiling and heard people screaming. Then people started running away," Sergei Lavochkin told a Russian cable news service.

A man identified only as Yuri told another news channel that he and about 200 people around him bolted for cover when the explosion hit.

"There were many people. If I were two meters to the side, I would have been badly hurt," he said. "There was a bang, and all I remember is that the shock wave pushed me to the floor. My hat flew away, and I put my jacket over my head. Five seconds later, when the smoke cleared, I saw people running out."

Russia's Rosbalt news agency said the Federal Security Services were aware that terrorists were planning an impending attack, but were searching for the terrorists in Zelenograd, a town near Moscow.

Most witnesses cited by Russian media literally did not know what had hit them when they first heard the blast.

"We were walking out through the exit of the arrivals hall towards the car, and there was this almighty explosion, a huge bang. We didn't know it was an explosion at the time," Mark Green told the BBC.

"My colleague and I looked at each other and said ... 'That sounds like a car bomb' or something, because the noise was, literally, it shook you," Green said.

Moscow was put on a "high terror alert" after the blast, and Medvedev delayed his planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The explosion was the deadliest in Russia since last March, when two female suicide bombers from Russia's volatile Muslim-majority Dagestan region set off explosives in the Moscow subway system, killing 40 people.

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the March attack. He was seen in a video apparently made not long after the attack, saying, "The war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin."

"It makes you feel as if you don't want to leave your house," Zamir Gotta, a Moscow book publisher who lives part time near New York City, told AOL News. "Now Russia is like London and New York and other places. No matter how strong the government, you can't feel safe."