Terror Attack on Russian Hydroelectric Power Plant
Why is an attack in Russia important to maritime lawmen in the U.S.? The story’s not about location, but the targeting of a hydroelectic plant. Hydroelectricity, meaning power derived from water, is produced by falling or flowing water from a reservoir, lake, river, or ocean tides. That’s where we come in, by patrolling the facility and its source. A successful attack on a conventional plant could easily result in massive flooding and the collapse of the local maritime transportation system. And we live in a target rich environment.
Those responsible for this attack are from the same stock as those who killed mercilessly in Beslan and Moscow. Major league killers with no regard for life. Keep your eyes open, attacks inforeign nations have a way of migrating into our own border.
Militants stormed a hydroelectric plant in southern Russia Wednesday, killing two security guards and setting off explosives in what is being called a terrorist attack. The incident underscores a growing threat in the region. Assailants armed with guns and explosives burst into the Baksanskaya power plant around dawn. They set off a string of bombs that damaged equipment in the machine room and started a fire that authorities rushed to put out. The company says two turbines were destroyed and the facility has been shut down. But officials say electricity is still being supplied to the region through nearby power plants.
The attack occurred in Kabardino-Balkaria, a republic in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, where authorities have been confronting an Islamist insurgency. Militants in the region have been blamed for near-daily attacks in the area as well as suicide bombings in the Moscow subway last March. Alexander Konovalov head of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Assessments says Wednesday’s attack served two purposes. He says first, it was a strike against the local authorities, who militants see as being too loyal to Moscow. Second, it attracts attention and shows the groups have the ability to attack a major power station. Russians were awoken to the threat posed by the destruction of a hydroelectric plant last year, when a major accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in Siberia threatened the lives of millions of people downstream.
Earlier this month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced a new strategy to confront the causes of violence in the North Caucasus by focusing on efforts to improve economic conditions in the region.
In the meantime, officials from Kabardino-Balkaria told President Dmitri Medvedev that steps are being taken to tighten security at other strategic facilities in the republic. Moscow fought two wars against separatist rebels in neighboring Chechnya in the 1990s. Militants have long vowed to target Russia’s economic infrastructure, including pipelines and power stations.
