In September 1999, a series of explosions hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
A Palestinian suicide bombing of a crowded public bus in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem took place on August 19, 2003. Twenty-four people were killed and over 130 wounded. Many of the victims were children, some of them infants. The Islamist militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mozdok or Kurugada is a town and the administrative center of Mozdoksky District in North Ossetia–Alania, Russia, located on the left shore of the Terek River, 92 kilometers (57 mi) north of the republic's capital Vladikavkaz. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 38,768.
On the night of 24 August 2004, explosive devices were detonated on board two domestic passenger flights that had taken off from Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, causing the destruction of both aircraft and the loss of all 90 people on board them.
Black Widow or Shahidka, is a term for Islamist Chechen female suicide bombers, willing to be a manifestation of violent jihad. They became known at the Moscow theater hostage crisis of October 2002. The commander Shamil Basayev referred to the shahidkas as a part of force of his suicide bombers called the Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs. Basayev also stated that he himself trained at least fifty of the Black Widows. The female suicide bombers have carried out over 65% of the 23 terrorist attacks linked to the Chechen movement since 2000. The Black Widows are associated with terrorist attacks in Chechnya between 1999 and 2005.
Human rights violations were committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing war crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, decapitation, and assorted other breaches of the law of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law.
In June 2000, the North Caucasian Chechen separatist-led Chechen insurgents added suicide bombing to their tactics in their struggle against Russia. Since then, there have been dozens of suicide attacks within and outside the republic of Chechnya, resulting in thousands of casualties among Russian security personnel and civilians. The profiles of the suicide bombers have varied, as have the circumstances surrounding the bombings.
Terrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the time of the Russian Empire. Terrorism, in the modern sense, means violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating extreme fear.
The February 2004 Moscow metro bombing occurred on 6 February 2004 when a male suicide bomber killed 41 people near Avtozavodskaya subway station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line in Moscow. Up to 250 people were injured in the incident, some of the more common injuries being broken bones and smoke inhalation.
The Grozny truck bombing occurred on 27 December 2002, when three Chechen suicide bombers ran vehicles into the heavily guarded republic's government headquarters in the regional capital Grozny.
Riyad-us Saliheen was the name of a small "martyr" (shahid) force of suicide attackers. Its original leader (amir) was the Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev. In February and March 2003, the group was designated by the United States and subsequently by the United Nations as a terrorist organization. After several years of inactivity, Riyad-us Saliheen was reactivated by the Caucasus Emirate in 2009 under the command of Said Buryatsky; following his death, Aslan Byutukayev became its new leader.
The 2009 Nazran bombing occurred on 17 August 2009, in Nazran, the largest city of the Republic of Ingushetia in the Russian Federation. A suicide car bomber attacked police headquarters, and at least 25 people were killed and 164 injured. It was the most serious terrorist attack in Ingushetia in the early 21st century, where there had been social and political unrest related to independence movements.
The 2010 Moscow Metro bombings were suicide bombings carried out by two female Islamic terrorists during the morning rush hour of March 29, 2010, at two stations of the Moscow Metro, with roughly 40 minutes in between. At least 40 people were killed, and over 100 injured.
The Domodedovo International Airport bombing was a suicide bombing in the international arrival hall of Moscow's Domodedovo International, in Domodedovsky District, Moscow Oblast, on 24 January 2011.
The 2011 Minsk Metro bombing took place on 11 April 2011 when 15 people were killed and 204 were injured when a bomb exploded within the Minsk Metro, Belarus. The explosion happened at the central Kastryčnickaja station at 17:55 local time.
Aslan Avgazarovich Byutukayev, also known as Emir Khamzat and Abubakar, was a Chechen field commander in the Islamic State (IS) Wilayah al-Qawqaz, the commander of the Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs and a close associate of the deceased Caucasus Emirate leader Dokka Umarov. Byutukayev was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States on 13 July 2016. He was killed by Russian special operatives in January 2021.
In December 2013, two separate suicide bombings a day apart targeted mass transportation in the city of Volgograd, in the Volgograd Oblast of Southern Russia, killing 34 people overall, including both perpetrators. The attacks followed a bus bombing carried out in the same city two months earlier.
On 11 December 2016, a suicide bomber killed 29 people and injured 47 others at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, a chapel next to Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope, in Cairo's Abbasia district. Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi identified the bomber as 22-year-old Mahmoud Shafiq Mohammed Mustafa, who had worn a suicide vest. el-Sisi reported that three men and a woman have been arrested in connection with the attack; two others are being sought. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
On 3 April 2017, a terrorist attack using an explosive device took place on the Saint Petersburg Metro between Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations. Eleven people were initially reported to have died, and five more died later from their injuries, bringing the total to 15.
