Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Doku Umarov: "We can carry out these operations whenever and wherever we want" 
 
 One of Russia's most wanted men, Chechen warlord Doku Umarov, has said he ordered the deadly bomb attack last month on a Moscow airport. 
 
 The suicide attack on the arrivals area of Domodedovo international airport on 24 January left 36 people dead and 180 injured. 
 
 In a video posted online, Mr Umarov said the attack was a response to "Russian crimes in the Caucasus". 
 
 Similar suicide attacks would continue, he added, speaking in Russian. 
 
 Mr Umarov is self-styled leader of the "Caucasus Emirate" and is considered the head of the Islamist militant insurgency in the North Caucasus. He is one of the few prominent Chechen rebels still active, having served as security minister in the Chechen separatist government from 1996-99. 
 
 Another video of the rebel leader was posted online late on Friday last week in which he threatened a year of "blood and tears" but made no explicit reference to the airport bombing. 
 
 Analysis Doku Umarov's claim that he ordered the Domodedovo bombing will not come as a surprise to Russians. The Chechen warlord has been linked to previous acts of terror. But his declaration that there are hundreds more suicide bombers ready to strike at any moment will spread fear across the country. Following the Domodedovo bomb, the authorities have taken measures to prevent similar attacks. As of 1 February, there are new security regulations at Russian airports. It means tighter controls outside airport buildings and more document checks. One Russian newspaper this morning warned passengers to arrive four hours before a flight. It also predicted that it would be harder for individuals without valid air tickets to get access to the terminals. What's more, a string of law enforcement officials have been sacked and a new head of transport security has been appointed in the Interior Ministry. But few Russians believe that these measures will prevent future terror attacks and provide them security. 
 
 Doku Umarov has previously claimed the March 2010 suicide bombings on the Moscow Metro in which 39 people died, and is said to have ordered the November 2009 bombing of a train from Moscow to St Petersburg that left 26 dead. 
 
 'On my orders' 
 
 The video which appeared on the Kavkaz Tsentr website is dated 24 January, the day of the attack. 
 
 Appearing alone, dressed in combat fatigues, Mr Umarov speaks to the camera: "This special operation was carried out on my orders and, God willing, special operations like it will continue to be carried out." 
 
 He goes on to argue that Muslims are under attack all over the world, talking at length about the situation in Sudan, and condemns "Zionist and Christian regimes led by Israel and America". 
 
 Mr Umarov says that he and his fighters "are waging jihad in the Caucasus today to establish the word of Allah", and there are "hundreds more brothers" ready to sacrifice themselves to that end, in the fight with Russia's "racist regime". 
 
 Promising "regular, deeper and more aggressive operations", he says he wishes that so much blood did not have to be spilt for Russia to "leave the Caucasus". 
 
 'Special operation' 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Doku Umarov was flanked by two men in an earlier video. The younger man (R) is named "Seifullah" 
 
 Russian investigators say the suicide bomber who struck at Domodedovo Airport was a 20-year-old man from the North Caucasus. 
 
 Although the attacker has not been named officially, unnamed officials told the Interfax news agency on Sunday that he was believed to be Magomed Yevloyev from a village in Ingushetia in the northern Caucasus. 
 
 In the video of Doku Umarov posted last Friday, the rebel leader is flanked by two men, one of whom the rebel leader claims is preparing a "special operation". Russian media have suggested that the man in the video, named "Seifullah" by Mr Umarov, was Yevloyev. 
 
 At least seven foreigners were killed in the bombing at the airport - the busiest serving the Russian capital. The arrivals hall was full of people as several international flights had just landed. 
 
 Those killed included one person each from Britain, Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. At least 16 Russians were also among the dead. 
 
 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sacked several officials - said to include a regional transport chief and a Moscow police deputy head - after the bombing, blaming them for poor security. ||||| A website affiliated with Chechen rebels has released a video in which insurgent leader Doku Umarov claims responsibility for last month's deadly suicide bombing at Russia's largest airport and threatens more bloodshed if Russia does not leave the region. 
 
 The Kavkaz Center website says it received the video late Monday. It was not clear when or where the video was recorded. 
 
 The Jan. 24 attack at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport killed 36 people. Russian investigators say the bomber was a 20-year-old man from the Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, but have not released his name or other details. 
 
 "You see this special operation carried out by my order ... more special operations will be carried out in the future," Umarov says in the video, wearing a camouflage uniform and a skullcap. 
 
 "Among us there are hundreds of brothers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves" in further attacks, Umarov says in the video. "We can at any time carry out operations where we want." 
 
 Over the weekend, the website released another video in which Umarov also threatened more attacks, saying 2011 would be "the year of blood and tears." 
 
 Chechen rebels have fought two full-scale wars against Russian forces since 1994. Major offensives in the second war died down about a decade ago, but the insurgency has continued with small clashes in Chechnya and in neighboring Caucasus republics. 
 
 The rebels have claimed responsibility for an array of terrorist attacks, including last year's double suicide bombing of the Moscow subway system that killed 40 people. 
 
 Umarov, who seeks to create a Caucasus emirate independent from Russia and governed by Sharia law, said in the earlier video that he could call on 50 to 60 suicide bombers if necessary. 
 
 The blast at Domodedovo, south of the Russian capital, raised strong concerns about Russia's strategy against the insurgents and about its ability to protect against future attacks. The day after the bombing, President Dmitry Medvedev said that terrorist attacks in the country increased in 2010, although he did not cite figures. 
 
 The bomb went off in the waiting hall of the international arrivals area at the airport. As in many other airports, there were no security procedures to go through in order to get into that area. 
 
 Medvedev initially lashed out at airport management for poorly guarding the area, but the airport's operator responded that the Russian transport police are responsible for security in that part of the airport. 
 
 In the next few days, Medvedev fired several top transport police officials and ordered heightened security measures at all the country's main transport hubs, including major railway stations. 
 
 The attack took place as Medvedev was preparing to speak at the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he hoped to reassure foreign investors that Russia was safe and attractive. 
 
 The bombing forced him to make an abbreviated trip to Davos, where he declared that the attack would not crush Russia or its drive for investment. ||||| Two suicide bombings in a Russian city are stoking fear about the Sochi Winter Olympics. The most likely mastermind is a Chechen field commander who wants to humiliate Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. 
 
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 This undated frame grab image made available by IntelCenter and taken from a video posted on a pro-rebel website Wednesday, purports to show Chechen warlord Doku Umarov. In the video Umarov claims responsibility for the Moscow metro bombings that killed 40 people in March 2010. 
 
 In July, a video went up on a Russian-language website known as a forum for commentary and propaganda by militant Islamist groups in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus. In it, a Chechen man named Doku Umarov gave an unequivocal warning about the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, in whose success the Kremlin has invested tens of billions of dollars. 
 
 "Today we must show those who live in the Kremlin … that our kindness is not weakness," said Mr. Umarov, dressed in camouflage and wearing his trademark bushy beard. "They plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea. We as mujahadeen are required not to allow that, using any methods that Allah allows us." 
 
 On Sunday and Monday two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at different sites in Volgograd, a city, like Sochi, located just a few hundred miles from the Caucasus. Neither Umarov nor anyone else has claimed responsibility yet for the bombings, which killed at least 32 people and wounded dozens more. What’s certain, however, is that just weeks before the Olympic opening ceremonies, the attacks are bringing new tremors to a country that has struggled to quash a 20-year terrorist insurgency. 
 
 For analysts who have studied terrorist tactics, in Russia and elsewhere, it seems likely that Umarov had a hand in the attacks. Successful suicide bombings are difficult to plan, organize, and execute. And there aren’t that many groups with that ability in the North Caucasus, says Mia Bloom, a professor who has written several books examining female suicide bombers in Russia and other places. (Early reports from Russia claimed that the attacker on Sunday was a woman.) 
 
 “Doku Umarov is one of those guys who follows through. He specifically mentions getting Russians, to humiliate Putin, particularly because of Sochi,” says Ms. Bloom who teaches at the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. “It follows a pattern (for Umarov): the use of women, the use of simultaneous attacks, the use of hitting transportation infrastructure, the repetition of it, these are all the leitmotifs of his work,” she says. 
 
 John Horgan, who directs the UMass terrorism center, says the absence of Umarov taking responsibility may in fact indicate there are more bombers waiting to attack. 
 
 Umarov is latest iteration of the Chechen insurgent legacy. A veteran of the two wars and the stubborn violence that has ravaged Chechnya and the entire North Caucasus since the Soviet collapse, Umarov rose to prominence in the 2000s alongside notorious terrorist leaders such as Shamil Basayev, a fellow Chechen, but also radicalized jihadis from places like Jordan or Saudi Arabia with names like al-Khattab, Abu Hafs, and Abu Walid. 
 
 The presence of these foreign fighters helped turn the Chechen fight from a secular, ethnic-based independence cause towards a pan-Islamist, cross-border movement that spilled into other parts of the Caucasus 
 
 In 2007, after Russian forces killed a series of top commanders including Basayev and gained the upper hand in Chechnya, the insurgency began to fracture. Umarov declared himself “emir of the Caucasus Emirate,” an umbrella of rebel groups through the North Caucasus. Umarov used suicide bombers – which Basayev had helped introduce to Russia earlier that decade – in incidents like the 2002 Moscow theater siege, and the 2004 seizure of a school in Beslan. 
 
 Moscow bombings 
 
 Between 2009 and 2011, there were a series of spectacular attacks in Moscow, and a slew of other bombings around the North Caucasus, including the 2009 bombing of the high-speed train to St. Petersburg; the 2010 suicide bombing of two Moscow subways stations; and the 2011 suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. All were claimed by Umarov. 
 
 By 2011, the Caucasus Emirate was officially designated a terrorist group by the US State Department, and a $5 million reward was announced for information leading to Umarov's capture. 
 
 Since the second Chechen War erupted in 2000, Kremlin’s tactics in the North Caucasus have turned to using local allies to take the lead in fighting insurgents like Basayev and Umarov. That, along with millions of dollars in investments and infrastructure building, has helped bring a semblance of calm to Chechnya. 
 
 Other regions, however, continue to fester – such as Dagestan, a republic east of Chechnya that is a mosaic of ethnic groups who live uneasily side by side. Dagestan was the region that Tamerlan Tsarnaev visited in the months before planning the Boston Marathon bombing in April. It was also reportedly home of the female suicide bomber whose attack on a Volgograd bus in October killed six people. 
 
 Umarov’s activities were relatively minimal in months leading up to the July video, which has led to speculation that he was consolidating his authority among Caucasus groups and laying the groundwork for new attacks connected to Sochi. 
 
 The Sochi Olympics, which open Feb. 7, are the most expensive games ever, with the Kremlin estimated to have spent close to $60 billion to prepare the Black Sea city and the surrounding mountainous countryside to host thousands of athletes, tourists, and dignitaries. Sochi is about the same distance from Chechnya as New York is from Washington, though the formidable Caucasus Mountains prevent driving directly. 
 
 By most accounts, President Vladimir Putin has staked his personal prestige on Olympic success, and Russian security services have spent years preparing to ensure the games are not disrupted. That may be the main reason why terrorists have targeted other cities like Volgograd, which is a major transportation hub for southern Russia, experts say. 
 
 The Olympics also provide a ready venue for high-profile attacks to raise awareness of a group’s cause, similar to what happened with the 1972 Munich Olympics, says James Forest, former director of terrorism studies at the US Military Academy. Those games were tarnished by the killing of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches by members of a terror group wanting to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians. 
 
 “It conveys to the public that even though you have all this security, this is a target; they know that they can’t protect you,” Bloom says, “so that it has a greater oomph, greater impact.”
– A Chechen militant leader has claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed 36 people at Russia's biggest airport last month. Warlord Doku Umarov appears in a 16-minute video posted online in which he says the suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport was carried out on his orders and warns of more attacks to come, AP reports. "You see this special operation carried out by my order. More special operations will be carried out in the future," Umarov says in the video. "Among us there are hundreds of brothers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves" in further attacks. "We can at any time carry out operations where we want," he adds. Chechen rebels, who seek to establish an independent Islamic state in the Caucasus, also claimed responsibility for the Moscow subway bombing last year.