On the FSB and the Moscow Apt. Bldg. Explosion, http://www.amina.com/article/contheo.html
Of coarse, amina.com is a Chechen propaganda website... · articles related to chechnya · Conspiracy theories run into cold facts
Date: May 13, 2002
Source: The Russia Journal
By Ira Straus
> ...Second, in the case of the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings, there has
> been no evidence that it was the Chechens. None. But there is some
> evidence that it was the FSB...
Blaming the bombings in Russia on the FSB, on the other hand, is unfortunately justified by some evidence, inconclusive, to be sure, but inevitably so in the absence of a transparent investigation from the government. The evidence starts with the Ryazan incident, in which the FSB was caught planting bomb materials in an apartment block. This was later explained away as an exercise, which hardly fit the facts. The only explanation that made sense was the unmentionable one.
Then there is the test of plausibility: It is far more plausible that the FSB would murder its own citizens. A few hundred dead, for a specific practical purpose of the stability of the state and of the entire Russian Federation - this is light stuff, compared to the millions who were killed to satisfy a dictator's whims half a century ago . . . a dictator who was let off rather lightly in some recent remarks of President Vladimir Putin in Poland. And whose picture now sits on the desk of the security guard in the building where I live, alongside pictures of Putin and the Virgin Mary.
The coordination needed for bombing a few apartment buildings was far less than for the attacks on the World Trade Center. Secrecy would be much less difficult for this low-tech operation.
Then there are the Russian traditions of secrecy and American traditions of openness. The American professional pride in whistle-blowers and in publishing leaks of malfeasance often made it impossible for U.S. officials to maintain even the most valid and vital state secrets.
Then there's the test of "cui bono." The mainstay of any conspiracy theory is to attribute some "bono" to the very party that was damaged.
It is obvious who benefited in the case of the apartment bombings in Russia. The electoral campaign of Putin gained momentum. The advocates of a harsher war in Chechnya were strengthened. And, there would have been a benefit to any terrorists who delighted in causing mass suffering to Russians. So, it is not impossible that terrorists would have done it. Conceivably, internationalist Islamists like Khattab, although Chechen terrorists seemed instead have fit the classic mode of hostage taking for bargaining purposes.