Terrorist attack in Moscow region organized by Islamic State – ISW
The terrorist attack by militants of the Islamic State of Khorasan on the Moscow shopping center Crocus City Hall is a notable failure of the Russian intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
The nature of the attack indicates that only Islamic terrorists were involved in the incident, and no signs of Ukraine's involvement have been found.
This was reported in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
It is noted that the explanation of the evidence available today from open sources "does not require any wider and more complicated conspiracy theory either within or against the Russian state".
The ISW also noted that the evidence indicates that the attack on Crocus City Hall was the result of a significant failure of Russian intelligence, not a conspiracy initiated or directed against the Russian intelligence apparatus.
The organization drew attention to the too slow response of Russian law enforcement to the incident - security officers first arrived at Crocus City Hall an hour after the attack began, despite the fact that the headquarters of the Moscow riot police is located less than three kilometers from the building.
ISW also recalled that the United States had warned Russia about "very specific" signs of Islamic State preparations for attacks, but three days before the attack, Putin dismissed these warnings as "provocative statements".
"Russian intelligence could well have decided to ignore the US intelligence warning because of the extreme distrust of the United States Putin has driven deep into the Russian information and security spaces," the report says.
In addition, the Institute notes that the Kremlin was concerned about the spillover effects of intelligence actions targeting Muslim communities in Russia, which "would likely cause even more discontent and alienation in a community that Russia already discriminates against yet relies on for the forcible generation of manpower for its war in Ukraine".
"The Russian authorities may have weighed the cost of acting on intelligence from an adversary they do not trust against the risk of affecting a critical source of mobilization resources and found that risk to be excessively high," the ISW report says.
The Institute recalled that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed that the attack was carried out by "radical Islamists," but immediately accused the United States of trying to cover up the "Ukrainian trail" of the attack and directly accused Ukraine of being the "customer" of the attack.
"ISW continues to assess that the attack itself, as well as the claim pattern following the attack, is highly consistent with the way IS conducts and claims such incidents and has observed no evidence that Ukraine was involved in the attack," the report says.-
As a reminder, on the evening of Friday, March 22, several armed men in camouflage opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region. According to Russian officials, the attack killed more than 100 people.
