A female suicide bomber blew herself up today, in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, on approach to a police road block in the Kazbek district. The area neighbors Chechnya, home to Chechen female suicide bombers known as Black Widows. Dagestan might seem a million miles away from U.S. aviation interests — Dagestan transliterates to 'land of mountains' — but as I have previously written, and in my analysis, female suicide bombers are among the top-tier threats to U.S. aviation security. News of this Dagestanian female suicide bomber begs a few questions:

• Have terrorist training camps been set up in Dagestan?
• Who is training these female suicide bombers?
• Are these femmes fatales heading west?

Deutsche Presse-Agentur has more of the story:

Moscow - Five people were injured Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew up a mini-bus in Dagestan, Interfax news agency quoted the republic's Interior Ministry spokesman Mark Tochinsky as saying.

The explosive was rigged to a woman's belt and killed her immediately after she triggered it, officials said.

The blast occurred around 100 metres from a police road block in Dagestan's Kazbek district, where attacks have surpassed those in neighbouring Chechnya in recent months. 

The suicide attack in Dagestan today occurred on the fifth anniversary of the Dubrovka Theater Seige in Moscow when 850 people were taken hostage by 40 Islamic suicide bombers; 129 theater-goers died and 644 were injured. The siege was hailed Russia's 9/11 and involved 19 female suicide bombers.  

(photograph: The village of Tindi, in Dagestan, in the late 1890s. The photograph was taken by M. de Déchy) 

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