The interesting thing about the Chechen school tragedy is that Abu Walid the relatively new Saudi born leader of the Chechen terrorists (he replaced Khattab who was poisoned in 02 who was also a Saudi) said recently on Al Jazeera they would take their fight outside of Chechnya to Russian controlled areas with large Muslim populations. I'm guessing that's in order to incite the Muzzles in other provinces but also for the support that is needed.
I'm just guessing again, but I would think they wouldn't want to travel too far from their safe house to their destination here in the States as they don't want to risk being stopped or something going wrong. But in the final analysis I agree, nowhere is totally safe.
This was a Basayev led operation. It has his marks all over it. Plus the black widows.