The Telegraph

A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.

Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.

She was at her Moscow safe house at the time getting ready with two accomplices, both of whom survived and were seen fleeing the scene.

Islamist terrorists in Russia often use cheap unused mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.

The phones are usually kept switched off until the very last minute but in this case, Russian security sources believe, the terrorists were careless.

The dead woman has not been identified. Her handler, a 24-year-old woman from the internal Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, has been named as Zeinat Suyunova. Her husband is apparently still serving time in jail for himself being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.

Security sources believe the new year's eve bomber and the airport bombers may have been members of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaeda strongholds which was sent to the Russian capital in December to target the city's transportation system.

The security services circulated a warning to Moscow police that month, saying there was credible intelligence of two teams of Islamist militants poised to strike in different parts of the country.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with Monday's airport bombing, which left 35 people dead, and it is not clear whether the attack was carried out by one or two suicide bombers. Police are trying to identify the severed head of a male suicide bomber recovered from the scene and are trying to confirm whether he was accompanied by a female suicide bomber. Security sources said an apartment on the edge of Moscow thought to be a bomb-making factory was raided on 20 January but that it was empty. The Kremlin is under growing pressure to explain why its policy of pacifying the predominantly Muslim flank of southern Russia, which is used as a launch pad for such terror strikes, has failed. President Dmitry Medvedev fired Andrei Alexeyev, a senior transport policeman on Wednesday, pinning much of the blame on the police and the airport authorities. "Those who did not work properly must be punished," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8284279/Black-Widow-attempted-New-Year-Moscow-attack-but-blew-herself-up-by-mistake.html

:/ Russia really needs to get a handle on this. You'd figure they would be better at it since they really don't have to worry about civil liberties or anything (though i guess that's just proof that fewer civil liberties don't help fight terrorism)

Hahaha that's awesome!! I love hearing about potential suicide bombers blowing themselves up prematurely!!! (no innuendo intended)

I only wish there was a big cave with like 1000 of them terrorists including Bin Laden and a huge ass bomb goes off killing them all. 

When I saw the thread title, I thought it was about some spider, LOL.

Black Widow is quite literal, dressed all in black full-body Burqas, black for traditional islam and also for mourning, and Widows because they're exclusively female, and almost all of them have been widowed in the Chechen rebellions

O_o

So so sick and creepy...

For some reason I thought of the Marvel character Black Widow, or if that's what she was called. But yeah, it is quite ironic how she died, I personally think that what they're doing is not going to bring the Russian people nor the government around, what it will do is make the hate stronger and make the soldiers even more angry, causing more deaths. All those civilian deaths will result in even more Chechen deaths, whichever way you spin it, they're just making it worse for themselves.

Also, if that was a guy sending out the messages, he must be jumping with glee that he had managed to save lives of hundreds and stopped dozens getting maimed as a result, I know I would be. But it was likely an automated service.