25 January 2011 Last updated at 07:06 ET

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CCTV footage shows the blast as passengers walked through the airport

by Maria Ogryzlo, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

Russia needs Israeli-style airport security in the wake of a suspected suicide bombing in Moscow, the country's president has said.

Dmitry Medvedev spoke out the day after a bomber detonated an estimated 7kg (15lb) of TNT at Domodedovo airport, killing 35 people and injuring 110.

He blamed airport officials for "clear security breaches", and called for sackings if negligence was proved.

Militant groups from the North Caucasus are suspected of planning the attack.

Speaking to security officers in televised remarks, Mr Medvedev said terrorism was the most serious threat facing Russia today.

He called for those responsible to be hunted down and their organisations "eliminated".

Airport defiant

In a hard-hitting verdict on the events at Domodedovo on Monday, Mr Medvedev said the evidence from the airport "tells us that pure anarchy reigned".

Analysis

Chris YatesAviation analyst

Sooner or later, because of the way terror tactics have evolved, someone was going to enter an arrivals hall and blow themselves up. It was an accident waiting to happen.

But how do you secure an airport? It is a difficult conundrum. CCTV is useful only after the fact and, in an age of economic cutbacks, there is little scope for deploying armed footsoldiers.

So you have to rely on advanced profiling and technology. Scanners are unnecessary when lasers exist that can scan vehicles on arrival at an airport or people before they enter a terminal building. But nobody yet has done this because of the cost.

"People were allowed to walk in from anywhere. The entrance restrictions were partial at best."

He said an investigation by the prosecutor general would establish whether transport officials were guilty of criminal negligence.

In the meantime, he ordered the interior ministry to propose dismissals or reassignment of transport officials, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Describing the terror threat in Russia as being higher than that in the US, Mr Medvedev said a system of "comprehensive checks" based on Israeli and US security procedures should be introduced at all transport hubs.

Earlier, Mr Medvedev was clear that he believed airport managers were responsible for not preventing what he called a "well-prepared terrorist attack".

"Someone had to try very hard to carry or bring through such a vast amount of explosives," Mr Medvedev said.

"Those who take decisions there, and the management of the airport itself, must answer for this."

But airport authorities firmly denied any culpability.

"We fully met all the requirements in the sphere of air transport security for which we are responsible," spokeswoman Yelena Galanova said.

"We are an airport, we deal with air transport and are responsible for air transport security. All the existing requirements were fulfilled and we acted in accordance with the current legislation."

Mr Medvedev's remarks came as reports began to circulate suggesting some prior warning may have been given.

According to RIA Novosti, Russian authorities were warned a week ago that an "act of terror" would be carried out near one of Moscow's airports. Police were now seeking three suspects, it reported.

Click to play

Austrian traveller Dr Johann Hammerer: "Injured people were lying on trolleys"

Monday's explosion hit the airport's busy international arrivals hall in a public area where friends and drivers meet passengers who have passed through customs.

Eyewitnesses told Russian TV that before a bomber detonated the charge, he had shouted: "I'll kill you all!"

Scenes of panic ensued as the area filled with smoke, with bodies strewn across the floor.

Eight foreigners were reported killed, with one Briton among the dead as well as a German.

Almost 50 of those injured are now in a serious condition in hospital.

Caucasus concern

Mr Medvedev has admitted that poverty, corruption and conflict in the North Caucasus is Russia's biggest internal problem.

Militant attacks in Russia

• Oct 2010 - Six people killed as militants storm parliament in Chechnya, North Caucasus

• Mar 2010 - Suicide bombings at two Moscow metro stations kill 40 people; attack blamed on North Caucasus militants

• Nov 2009 - Bomb blast hits Moscow-St Petersburg luxury express train, killing 26; North Caucasus Islamist group claims responsibility

• Sept 2004 - Chechen rebels seize school in Beslan; 334 hostages, including many children, killed in ensuing battle

• Aug 2004 - Suicide bomber blows herself up at a Moscow metro station, killing 10

• Aug 2004 - Two Tupolev airliners that took off from Domodedovo blown up in mid-air by suicide bombers, killing 89 passengers and crew

Militants from the unsettled region are frequently blamed for terror attacks in Russia, including a double suicide bombing in March 2010 that killed 40 people on Moscow's underground system.

That attack was blamed on female suicide bombers from Dagestan.

Analysts say militant groups fighting in the Caucasus aim to undermine the idea that Russia's president and prime minister preside over a safe and secure society.

But like Vladimir Putin before him, Mr Medvedev appears unable to find a solution that would bring stability to that region and peace to Russia, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow.

Mr Putin built much of his reputation on a tough security stance to crack down on such violence.

More generally, security authorities internationally have been concerned that - while there is been a huge effort focused on airline passenger and airliner security - keeping airports and airport terminals themselves secure remains a major challenge.

Were you at the airport? Did you see or hear anything? Send us your accounts using the form below.

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Page last updated at 22:11 GMT, Monday, 12 April 2010 23:11 UK

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by Maria Ogryzlo, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

People wait in line to sign books of condolence next to a sea of candles left by mourners outside Warsaw's presidential palace, Poland, 12 April 2010

People wait in line to sign a condolence book next to a sea of candles left by mourners outside Warsaw's presidential palace

Poland's acting president is to review travel rules for military officials after the president and other top officials were killed in a plane crash.

Bronislaw Komorowski announced the move as mourning continued for the 96 people killed when the jet crashed in fog while trying to land in western Russia.

President Lech Kaczynski's body is to lie in state in a closed coffin.

Questions are being asked about why the jet's pilots ignored advice to divert to another airport because of the fog.

Russia flew the bodies of victims, many of them believed to be disfigured beyond recognition, to morgues in Moscow where only about a quarter of them have been identified.

The body of the president's wife, Maria Kaczynska, has been identified and is to due to be returned to Poland on Tuesday.

There is no precedent for a dual funeral involving a head of state and his first lady, but a spokesman for the president's office said a joint funeral would be held once the bodies of all those killed had been repatriated.

Those killed had been due to attend a memorial for the Polish victims of the World War II massacre by Soviet secret police at Katyn in the Smolensk region.

Commentators in Poland have stressed the irony that so many senior figures were killed making a visit to commemorate victims of a massacre which targeted the elite of Poland's officer corps.

'Advised against landing'

The Soviet-built Tu-154 airliner clipped tree-tops as it tried to land at a former air base north of the city of Smolensk on Saturday morning.

SENIOR FIGURES KILLED

National leaders:
President Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria
Former President-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski

Top civil servant:
Slawomir Skrzypek National Bank of Poland chairman

Other politicians:
Wladyslaw Stasiak chief of the president's chancellery Aleksander Szczyglo chief of the National Security Office
Jerzy Szmajdzinski deputy speaker of the lower house Andrzej Kremer Foreign Ministry's undersecretary of state Stanislaw Komorowski deputy minister of national defence Przemyslaw Gosiewski Law and Justice party deputy chair

Military figures:
Franciszek Gagor chief of the general staff
Andrzej Blasik head of the air force
Andrzej Karweta head of the navy
Tadeusz Buk land forces commander
Aleksander Szczyglo head of the National Security Office

Cultural figures:
Andrzej Przewoznik head of Poland's Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites
Tomasz Merta chief historical conservator

Pilot error in Polish air crash?

In pictures: Nations mourn

Russia-Poland thaw from tragedy

Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said that Polish investigators had talked to the flight controller and flight supervisor and concluded that there had been "no conditions for landing".

"The tower was advising against the landing," he said.

Polish investigators, he said, had not yet listened to the cockpit conversations recorded on the plane's recovered black boxes but would do so to see if there had been "any suggestions made to the pilots" from other people aboard the plane.

There has been speculation the pilot and co-pilot, who were both aged 36, were under pressure not to delay the landing.

Sergei Ivanov, Russia's first deputy prime minister, said the black boxes were "absolutely functional and recorded absolutely all the information, sound as well as parametric [information], till the moment of crash".

"It is reliably confirmed that warning of the unfavourable weather conditions at the North airport and recommendations to go to a reserve airport were not only transmitted but received by the crew of the plane," he added.

Mr Seremet said the remains of 87 people had been found so far and he hoped the rest would be retrieved when the crash debris was lifted with heavy machinery.

Special session

A special joint session of the Polish parliament has been called for Tuesday to debate the disaster whose victims included MPs.

Kaczynski tributes at Warsaw palace

It is believed the funerals could be held this weekend.

The crash shocked many Russians as well, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy reports from Warsaw.

President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have devoted much time and effort to dealing with the aftermath of the crash, he adds, and Monday was a day of mourning in Russia.

The country was "suffering and grieving together with the Poles", Mr Putin told a cabinet meeting.

Russia's handling of the tragedy has been widely appreciated by many in Poland, though others suggest the thaw in relations may not last, our correspondent says.

At least 130 relatives have been flown to the Russian capital in the hope of helping forensic scientists to identify their loved ones' remains. They are being aided by Polish and Russian psychologists.

"We all had to fulfil this difficult duty," said Rafal Dobrzeniecki, whose fiancee's father died in the crash. "I never had the chance to call him my dear father-in-law, he will always stay in my memory."