Somalia has been unstable since the collapse of Siad Barre's hardline regime in 1991.
Indeed, it was the only province not to be captured by the Taliban before the hardline regime was toppled by US-led forces in late 2001.
It was also the Taliban's spiritual homeland throughout the hardline regime's reign of the 1990s, and the insurgents have been exerting increasing control in the city and the surrounding province.
Mr Grodnikov's alleged murder comes as Lukashenko's hardline regime twists a tourniquet on the slightest sign of dissent in the run up to presidential elections on March 19.
There is likely to be speculation that the blast will play into the hands of the hardline regime, who may use it as an excuse to crack down on the opposition.
Or will it look like Iran in 2009, where a hardline regime crushed a popular protest movement with iron-fisted resolve?The protests have left hundreds dead, frozen Egypt's economy, forced a cabinet to resign, brought the army onto the streets and prompted Mr Mubarak to promise reforms.
Coming from the Dinka tribe of southern Sudan, whose people rank among the tallest in the world, and guided by their dynamic father Aldo (a former government minister from the Christian south who was jailed by a new hardline regime), the nine Deng children fled to Egypt in the early 90s with their mother.
City will also hope there will be a renaissance of those who appeared to become disaffected under Mancini's hardline regime, such as goalkeeper Joe Hart and captain Vincent Kompany.
"I think particularly since the reemergence of Putin and a much more hardline regime, [especially] with the problems now in the Ukraine, there's been this sense that Russia remains a geopolitical threat and a hostile power – even if it's post-communist – and I think that's really the reason you see this type of villainy," says Chapman.
Such a deal, by the way, will allow Pakistan to realize its vision of installing an Islamic hardline regime in Kabul that would be hostile towards India.
