THE images came fast. First there was a picture of a metro train door hanging from its hinges, a man prone on the platform next to it. Then there came phone videos of commuters huddled, ghostlike, brown-grey smoke. And, finally, a CCTV image tweeted by a local newspaper of a man dressed in black with a dark beard and taqiyah skullcap on his head.

He was, said coy news readers, of “eastern appearance”.

For Russians watching events unfolding in St Petersburg on social media and TV and radio this told them a story they have heard over and over again for years.

Metro Attack

The Herald:

There has been an terror attack on public transport killing and maiming some of their fellow citizens and affecting many more. And, that as yet unverified CCTV picture added, the atrocity was carried out by Muslim extremists of one hue or another.

So far, so familiar. Russians have seen plenty of opportunistic attacks on soft targets in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back in December 2013 - the last time this happened, suicide bombers killed 32 people at a train station and on a trolley in Volgograd.

But this was different. This was Russia’s second city, its ‘northern capital’. It had not been struck for a decade. And yesterday’s attack came on a day when self-styled hardman president Vladimir Putin, reeling from anti-corruption protests, was meeting his embattled Belarussian counterpart and ally Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the city, his home town.

Vladimir Putin

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Former security operative Gennady Gudkov was quick to underline that this was unlikely to be a co-incidence. “They knew about the visit, the place and time,” he told independent radio station Ekho Moskvy. “The explosion took place just as the president was due to speak. This terrorist act did not take place, as they would have said before, ‘ wherever and whenever we can, in Moscow or Volgograd or wherever’. This crime was carried out exactly where and when its organisers planned.” This, he added, was a real challenge set out to Russian authorities and Mr Putin’s promise to fight the terrorists on their territory.

There was particular disquiet among Russian experts about a second explosive device found in St Petersburg which was found before it went off: a fire extinguisher containing a kilo of TNT. “You don’t cook TNT in your kitchen,” an expert told Ekho Moskvy. “Somebody made that or somebody organised that. That means this is not some kind of maniac of got in to his car and drove in to a crowd like in London. This is systematic.”

Russia is still facing a domestic Islamist and separatist terror threat from a group called the Caucasus Emirate, which wants to form an independent Muslim state in the northern Caucasus.

However, Mr Putin - who is always eager to be seen in the company of Russian Muslims and avoids racist rhetoric - has been keen to be seen taking the fight to on terror to Syria.

He has also made controversial intervention in that country - where he is backing up the regime, fighting both the so-called Islamic State and its western-backed enemies.

However, Russians have not just gone to Syria to combat ISIS. Some fight for the Islamic state. Russian citizens from Dagestan and Chechnya, the core republics Caucasus Emirate wishes to control - make a substantial foreign contingent in both Syria and Iraq. So too do Uzbeks from Central Asia.

So what for Putin? He is facing the biggest anti-corruption protests in years. Does terrorism help him play the hardman again? He held power in the 2000s as the man who would reimpose order and restore the economy after the chaotic post-Soviet Boris Yeltsin years. Will Russians want that again? Presidential elections are next year. Mr Putin does not seem able to keep Russia safe. Can anyone else?