7 OCT 2026Domodedovo Airport Bombing
7 OCT 2026 Osama bin Laden killed
In a White House address, President Barack Obama announced that a small US team had carried out "a targeted operation" against a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He said: "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body." The BBC reported that the operation was said to be carried out by US Navy SEALs, that DNA tests later confirmed bin Laden's death, and that he was buried at sea after a Muslim funeral on an aircraft carrier. According to a senior US official quoted by the BBC, three other men and one woman were also killed in the raid.
In a media release on 2 May 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard welcomed "this great blow against terrorism". She listed Australians killed in attacks that bin Laden's al Qaeda "conducted, inspired or had links to": 10 on 11 September 2001, 88 in Bali in 2002, one in London and four in Bali in 2005, two in Mumbai in 2008 and three in Jakarta in 2009. She also acknowledged "Pakistan's cooperation in the fight against terrorism".
At a Canberra press conference, Ms Gillard said she hoped the news "comes as some small measure of justice for those who still grieve the loss of their loved ones." She added that "al Qaeda is not finished" and that Australia "will continue the mission in Afghanistan".
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7 OCT 2026 Breivik – Oslo bombing and Utoya massacre
On 22 July 2011, a fertiliser car bomb exploded in Oslo's government quarter at 15:26, killing eight people and injuring 209. Anders Behring Breivik, dressed as a police officer, then went to a Labour Party youth camp on Utøya island, where he killed 69 people and wounded 33 before surrendering to police. In August 2012 an Oslo court found him sane and convicted him of terrorism and premeditated murder. He received the maximum 21-year sentence as "preventive detention", which can be extended if he is still considered a danger to society. The BBC reported that he said the attacks were needed to stop the "Islamisation" of Norway.
Australian response: on 23 July 2011 (AEST), Prime Minister Julia Gillard said "Australia condemns the brutal and shocking attacks which occurred in Norway overnight." DFAT said no Australians were known to have been killed or injured.
Link to Christchurch: Brenton Tarrant, whom the New Zealand High Court, at his sentencing, described as "a 29-year-old Australian man", murdered 51 people at two Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019. SMH (republishing the Washington Post) reported that the manifesto Tarrant posted named Breivik as his "true inspiration". It quoted the manifesto: "I have only had brief contact with Knight Justiciar Breivik, receiving a blessing for my mission after contacting his brother knights". Breivik's lawyer and prison officials doubted any contact had happened.
In December 2021, New Zealand's Classification Office banned Breivik's manifesto. It said the Royal Commission report into the Christchurch attack "highlighted the influence of the Oslo Manifesto in relation to that attack". The Royal Commission's report also noted that a warning about semi-automatic firearms in New Zealand "followed a terrorist attack conducted in Oslo and on Utøya Island in Norway in 2011, in which a semi-automatic rifle was used."
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Introduction
On 24 January 2011 a suicide bomber detonated a charge in the crowded international arrivals hall of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.
Thirty-seven people were killed, among them at least seven foreigners, and about 172 were injured. The bomber was identified as Magomed Yevloyev, 20, from Ali-Yurt in Ingushetia. Investigators said he had travelled to Moscow three days earlier, and that the attack had been prepared at a camp of the Caucasus Emirate.
Doku Umarov, who led that movement, said he had ordered the bombing.
Government Response
The president and the airport
President Dmitry Medvedev delayed his departure for the World Economic Forum in Davos. He described security at Domodedovo as a state of anarchy and said the airport's management would be held responsible. He also blamed the Interior Ministry and the FSB, and told both to name officers for dismissal or other sanction. He ordered a system of total examination of passengers and bags at airports and stations, and a tightening of security at every Russian airport.
A separate inquiry was opened into the airport's own arrangements. Flights were not cancelled en masse, although a handful of aircraft already in the air were diverted to other airports.
The trial
On 11 November 2013 a Moscow court sentenced three men, Islam Yandiyev, Ilez Yandiyev and Bashir Khamkhoyev, to life in a penal colony for helping the bomber reach Moscow, housing him and supplying the charge. Akhmed Yevloyev, the bomber's brother, who had been a minor at the time, received ten years. He said he had not known an attack was coming. The criminal file ran to 117 volumes.
Australia
The attack and Russia's response were reported in Australia by the ABC.
Summary
A 20-year-old from Ingushetia walked into the arrivals hall of Moscow's busiest airport and killed 37 people. The president called the airport's security a state of anarchy and also held the police and the FSB to account. Three men who had helped the bomber were sentenced to life in a penal colony. The man who said he had ordered the attack was already a fugitive.
The 2013 verdict is on the court record, as is Medvedev's instruction.
You be the judge.
