Russian dictator Putin was silent for almost days after a terror attack on a Moscow concert hall. He apparently wanted to figure out how to spin his regimes failure to prevent a terror attack by ISIS jihadis. His conclusion: they were working for Ukraine. Really?!
“Putin Finally Speaks 20 Hours After Concert Attack and Suggests Gunmen Have Links With Ukraine”
In a televised address, he confirmed that 11 people were detained, including four directly involved in the attack at the concert hall. Putin linked the attack at “Crocus City Hall” with Ukraine.
“They (terrorists) tried to escape and were moving towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary information, a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” he said.
The Ukrainian government has a problem with this claim…
“To suggest that after more than two years of a full-scale invasion, terrorists would head towards border regions that are currently highly saturated with security forces, special services, and military presence, I believe no further comment is necessary,” Yusov added.
There is also another problem with Putin’s ‘theory’: The U.S. warned Moscow weeks ago that there would be an attack on Russia:
The U.S. said it shared intelligence with Russia that warned that ISIS was preparing similar attacks on concerts in Moscow just two weeks ago. A U.S. State Department official said Saturday that the U.S. government had shared information on a possible attack with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding “duty to warn” policy.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a warning on March 7, advising U.S. citizens to avoid large gatherings for 48 hours, saying extremists have “imminent plans” to target large-scale gatherings in Moscow.
Even FOXNews isn’t buying Putin’s lame claims:
This Reuters/BBC report suggests that far from being Ukrainian or Ukrainian linked. Everything suggests they were members of ISIS-K, which has nothing to do with Ukraine:
BBC News’ Russian Service quoted an unnamed source familiar with the security response as saying one attacker was killed in the concert hall, and another in the car in Bryansk. The BBC said it had a copy of that dead man’s passport, who it said was a 30-year-old citizen of Tajikistan.
TV editor Simonyan published a video showing one of the suspects, a young, bearded man, being interrogated aggressively by a roadside, replying in heavily accented Russian to a series of barked questions. He said he had flown from Turkey on March 4 and had received instructions from unknown people via Telegram to carry out the attack in exchange for money.
Friday’s attack, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Kremlin, happened two weeks after the U.S. embassy in Russia warned that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.
Hours before the embassy warning, the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, which seeks a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.
Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and Islamic State.
“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center, a New York-based research group.
Bottomline:
Why would Ukraine deliberately commit a terror attack of this kind when it would obviously play into the hands of Putin and his illegitimate war? Even the Russians admit that it was Jihadis that were involved in the terror attack. And it came 2-weeks before they were warned by the U.S. Putin will try but he won’t be able to spin this.
Jobrny's Rant 