Russian president fires transport police chief after suicide blast

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today sacked the chief of the country's transport police in the wake of the suicide attack at Moscow's international airport that claimed 35 lives and warned of more dismissals if the officers did not perform their duties properly.

"I have signed a decree relieving (Major General Andrei) Alekseyev of his duties as head of the interior ministry transport security directorate," Medvedev said.

He warned that more dismissals will follow.

According to Russian media, Alexeyev had only been in the post in the interior ministry since last year

Medvedev ordered interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to "shake up" the entire transport police to ensure daily transport security, Ria Novosti reported.

"If people don't understand how to work, we'll find other people," Medvedev was quoted as saying.

The president had yesterday criticised airport security and said those responsible would be "punished."

Russia needs a modern colour-coded security system in the transport sector similar to the systems used in the West, Medvedev said.

Monday's blast at the arrivals zone of the Domodedovo airport killed 35 people and injured over 180 others. No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, which came less than a year after after two woman suicide bombers from the volatile North Caucasus struck the Moscow metro killing 40 people.

The identity of the terrorists who carried out the blast at the airport has not yet been officially confirmed, with some reports suggesting the attack was carried out by a 'black widow' of a slain militant in North Caucasus, who was accompanied by a man.

However, some other local media reports, quoting police sources, said that unlike in the previous cases of terror strikes in the capital, the attack at the Domodedovo airport was carried out by a man, who was not an ethnic Caucasian nor a 'black widow'.

The Life.ru web portal published a picture of the head of the suicide bomber, which it claims looks more like an Arab and not Caucasian.

However, newsru.com website does not rule out that the suicide bomber could be from the so called 'Nugai Jamaat' extremist Islamist group active in Russia's North Caucasian republic of Daghestan and Stavropol territory.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that "retribution is inevitable".

"This was an abominable crime in both its senselessness and its cruelty," he said last night, offering government help to the families of those affected.

Meanwhile, Russia's national capital region observed a day of mourning today for the victims of Monday's suicide attack. The flags flew at half mast and all public forms of entertainment had been cancelled.