McDonald's Bombing: Terrorists or Hooligans?

By now everyone's probably heard that a bomb went off in a McDonald's in St. Petersburg, Russia yesterday. Sure, this happens every now and then, what with McDonald's being a symbol of American capitalism and all. There was one thing in the news reports which I've read online that caught my attention. In today's world, the word "Bomb" is always coupled with the word "Terrorism" or "Terrorist", unless used in the sense of military bombs. For example, "the bomb that killed x number of people in the market square was believed to be the work of so and so terrorists", or "the bombing of the train is being investigated as an act of terrorism". In this bit of news, the Russian Police are investigating the bombing of the St. Petersburg McDonald's as "an act of hooliganism" and have opened a criminal case "under the article of the Criminal Code of attempted murder of two and more persons" and the police doubt that this was an act of terrorism. They're not looking for terrorists, but young vandals and hooligans, in other words, criminals. Had this bomb gone off in a McDonald's in let's say France or the UK, the police would most likely be treating it as an act of terrorism. What if it had happened in America?

The only reason I can think of in this difference of thinking and labelling is that maybe the Russians can differentiate between a strong criminal act and an act of terrorism, something that the western world is having problems with. One has to take into consideration that Russia is better aware of terrorism than the western world, especially America, and has dealt with it in the past on numerous occasions. Maybe America and it's allies don't yet know what the true definition of terrorism is...

Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/19/russia.blast/
http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/artikkeli/1135225215438