WASHINGTON, January 3 (RIA Novosti) – A senior US lawmaker plans to hold a Congressional hearing to explore improved cooperation with Moscow on counterterrorism efforts in the wake of two deadly bombings in Russia this week.
“We need to overcome the Cold War mentality and work together to stop terrorist attacks before they happen,” US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, said in a statement Thursday.
Suicide bombers in Russia’s southern city of Volgograd blew up a train station and a trolleybus crowded with morning commuters within 24 hours of each other on December 29 and 30, killing a total of 34 people and injuring 64 more.
US President Barack Obama’s administration condemned the attacks and offered to assist Russia in security preparations for the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi set to kick off February 7.
Rohrabacher praised the White House’s swift response but lamented a deterioration in US-Russian ties that he portrayed as an obstacle to forming a united front against terrorism.
“Whenever unarmed citizens are victims of terrorist attacks, we should stand in solidarity with their countries – especially with Russia,” said Rohrabacher, a Republican from California. “Unfortunately, our own recent relations with Moscow have called into question what should be Washington’s automatic response.”
The congressman has said that rocky relations between the two countries may have diminished the United States’ ability to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing in April that killed three people and wounded hundreds more.
US authorities say the attack was carried out by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers with family ties to restive, mainly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) informed the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a March 2011 letter that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a police shootout in the days following the April 15 attack, was becoming radicalized.
Russian authorities said they did not receive a response from US counterparts to the warning, and FBI chief Robert Mueller testified before Congress after the bombing that federal authorities investigated the Russian tip-off but determined Tsarnaev was not a threat.
“Our security cooperation should be at a much higher level and much more extensive,” Rohrabacher said Thursday.
Rohrabacher has repeatedly called for improved ties with Moscow over the past year. In August he told RIA Novosti that US officials should “quit villainizing Russia and try to find a way to work with Russia” to counter threats from radical Islamists.
