Russia’s reported discovery of 510 billion barrels of oil in Antarctica has led to warnings of a new “Cold War” of sorts. “Russia could rip up a decades-old treaty and claim oil-rich Antarctic land,” Yahoo News told its readers. The Daily Telegraph said “Russia (has) sparked fears of an oil grab in British Antarctic territory.”
The U.S. warning to Russia ahead of a terrorist attack near Moscow was highly specific: Crocus City Hall was a potential target of the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.
The warning had the right venue but imprecise timing, suggesting that the attack could come within days. Indeed, the public warning by the United States Embassy on March 7 warned of potential terrorist attacks in the next two days.
Whenever an apparent terrorist attack occurs, one’s first thought is ‘who was responsible?’
In a reasonable country, one starts with the facts. But Russia is not a reasonable country. Indeed, since the terrible massacre which claimed 137 lives, the Kremlin’s first instinct was to pump out every conceivable conspiracy theory under the sun.
The first was that Kyiv was responsible, later extrapolated to include the Western intelligence services, such as MI6. This is despite the fact that, in private, it would appear that very few of the Russian elite believe that Ukraine or the West bear any responsibility. There are even reports that Putin himself is unconvinced by what his propaganda spews.
Last weekend’s terrorist attack in Moscow has renewed debate about the capabilities and reach of Islamic State (IS) but also who, exactly, was behind the killing of at least 139 people at Crocus City Hall.
Much of the media coverage has so far focused on Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an Afghanistan-based IS contingent that was likely involved in the atrocity. But this should not be misunderstood as a separate entity: IS’s “provinces”, such as ISKP, all take their cue from the “centre” in Iraq and Syria.
The court appearance of the four men accused by Russia of carrying out the Moscow massacre of 137 innocent concert goers at the Crocus City Hall venue told its own grim story. All the suspects bore marks of torture: one was wearing a bandage on his ear, following reports that it may have been at least partially severed and forcibly fed to him during his interrogation; another was semi-conscious and appeared to be missing an eye. Meanwhile, a video did the rounds seemingly showing one of the men’s genitals hooked up to an electricity generator.
More than 130 killed, more than 140 injured – that is the grim toll of an attack by gunmen on the Crocus City Hall in the north-western suburbs of Moscow on Friday evening. Responsibility was quickly claimed by an Islamic State affiliate, with the United States endorsing that attribution as credible. The US also made it known that it had warned Russia, via some of the few channels still open between the two countries, of a pending terror attack, although Russia appeared not to have acted on the tip.
Footage of Russian forces torturing the men they arrested over the Moscow terror attack emerged tonight, with one man given electric shocks to his genitals and a second forced to eat his own ear.
One image shows a suspect named as Shamsuddin Fariddun foaming at the mouth as he lies on a gym floor with his trousers pulled down and wires attached to his groin area. At the other end they are attached to a military radio powered by an 80-volt battery.
Separate video sees another man, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, having his ear severed and then spitting it out as he is forced to eat it.
As news of the Moscow concert hall attack broke on Friday, Ukrainians knew what was coming: Kyiv would be blamed.
The next thing they expected was more drones and more missiles.
The accusations began almost immediately.
They were just hints at first, until President Vladimir Putin openly claimed that the men who attacked Moscow had tried to flee to Ukraine, helped by contacts there.
Then shortly before dawn on Sunday came the sound of explosions in Kyiv.
Shit Muslims Do. Warning Graphic.
From the outset it was obvious to seasoned observers who massacred more than 130 Russians at a concert hall Moscow on Friday evening. It wasn’t, as some in the Kremlin claimed, Ukraine. What would they stand to gain from such indiscriminate slaughter?
The people who opened fire in the Crocus City Hall cleaved to the same ideology as those who have this century murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children in New York, Bali, Madrid, London, Brussels, Paris, Manchester and Nice. According to reports, the group that carried out the Moscow attack is known as Islamic State Khorasan (Isis-K) and it has a reputation for ‘extreme brutality’.
(AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday vowed to punish those behind a “barbaric terrorist attack” on a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133, saying Russia had arrested four gunmen who were trying to flee to Ukraine.
Kyiv has strongly denied any connection, and Putin made no reference to claims of responsibility by the Islamic State in his first public remarks on the attack.
Eleven people have been detained after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow and opened fire on the crowd, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service told President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said four people among those detained were directly involved in the attack.
They were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” it said.
At least 115 people were killed in Friday’s attack, including three children, authorities said.
⚡️⚡️⚡️ Interrogation of a suspect in the shooting of people in Crocus City Hall in Moscow 🇷🇺
– What were you doing in Crocus?
– Shooting.– Whom?
– People– For what reason?
– For moneyIncreasingly it looks like the terror-act may have had 🇷🇺 FSB hands in its planning. pic.twitter.com/Q2C81tgO9u
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) March 23, 2024
A branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility on Friday for the attack in Moscow that killed at least 40 people and injured about 100 others, and U.S. officials confirmed the claim shortly afterward.
The United States collected intelligence in March that Islamic State-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, the branch of the group based in Afghanistan, had been planning an attack on Moscow, according to officials. ISIS members have been active in Russia, one U.S. official said.
Dozens of people have been killed at a Russian concert hall in what Moscow has called “a bloody terrorist attack.” Our report from Moscow. Team: @BenTavener @AntonChicherov pic.twitter.com/NZgF8QBno4
— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) March 22, 2024
A renowned Moscow region concert venue and shopping centre is on fire on Friday evening, following reports of a mass shooting incident.
At least three gunmen, wearing combat fatigues, burst into Crocus City Hall and fired automatic weapons, injuring dozens of patrons and killing a significant number of them, according to Russian media.
A group of unidentified men, ranging from two to five people, dressed in tactical gear and armed with automatic weapons, opened fire on the guards at the entrance of the concert hall. They then began shooting at the audience in the foyer. #Moscow pic.twitter.com/QjHU0DmW6A
— Russian Market (@runews) March 22, 2024
BREAKING:
Hundreds of people likely being held hostage at the Crocus Concert Hall near Moscow.
At least 40 have been killed.
Large parts of the building are on fire.
SWAT teams have arrived but can’t enter due to the hostage situation. pic.twitter.com/4AkIZ2XvFV
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 22, 2024
🚨🚨🚨 Warning Graphic footage: What looks like a major terror attack now happening in Moscow.
— Inc.Monocle (@IncMonocle) March 22, 2024
Twitter – #Moscow
Moscow is evoking German war crimes in its row over Ukraine — but it’s not the only country with demands
Berlin has rejected a demand by Moscow that it should acknowledge the 900-day siege of Leningrad as genocide and pay compensation for 1.1 million people who died at the hands of the German army.
In a response to a diplomatic note sent by Russia, the German foreign ministry said the blockade of what is now St Petersburg between September 1941 and January 1944 was a “terrible war crime that the German Wehrmacht brought on Leningrad and its population” but fell short of calling it a genocide. It said the German government had emphasised this repeatedly and was maintaining this legal opinion.
Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has suffered “grave reputational damage” and lost the trust of some western partners after one of its senior officers was outed as an alleged Russian spy, the organisation’s chief has said.
The Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which loosely speaking combines the roles of MI6 and GCHQ in the UK, has been dragged into a Berlin court to address one of the most serious breaches of secrecy in its 70-year history.
