PAUL KENGOR
The terrorist attack on a concert hall outside of Moscow on Friday was shocking in its savage brutality. The animals who unleashed themselves upon hundreds of innocents in a crowded Crocus City Hall were merciless. The hall is part of a larger shopping complex. The camouflaged assailants slithered inside, opened fire with automatic weapons, methodically shot anyone within range, tossed grenades and incendiary bombs, and engulfed the whole edifice in a giant fireball. It was hellacious. Hundreds were injured and thus far 133 murdered.
The attack was carried out by ISIS-K — Islamic State-Khorasan — the Afghanistan affiliate of the so-called and self-proclaimed “Islamic State.” ISIS-K has thrived since the Biden withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 and subsequent Taliban return to power. (READ MORE: Flashback: Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal: More Risk Than Reward)
For the record, ISIS-K is not part of the Taliban, and in fact opposes the current Taliban regime. It existed prior to the Taliban’s return. But of course, the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan— sadly and unpredictably — removed a crucial stabilizing force that aimed to keep a lid on Islamic terror throughout the region, including the dastardly doings of the ISIS-K strongholds north and east of Kabul. Recall the August 26, 2021 ISIS-K suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. military personnel and 169 Afghans during the U.S. withdrawal.
But let us return to the horrors of the moment: ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the Friday attack outside Moscow, and U.S. intelligence quickly confirmed it. There was no mistake about who was responsible. ISIS-K despises the Russian government and has escalated its attacks in the last two years.
Vladimir Putin’s initial response to the attack, however, was very troubling. In his first public statement, he made no reference to ISIS-K’s claims of responsibility. He attempted to link those responsible for the “barbaric terrorist attack” not to the Islamic State but to Ukraine. He went so far as to claim that the attackers were trying to get “back to” Ukraine. Putin asserted: “They tried to hide and move towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side, across the state border.”
Putin did not get into the details of his “preliminary data.”
Mad Dog Putin’s cynical finger-pointing toward Ukraine became the official Kremlin line. One of his chief propagandists, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, stated: “Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution: Ukraine.”
Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, claimed flatly, “Ukraine and its patrons are the main stakeholders in the terrorist attack at Crocus.” Quite ominously, he said that “if information about the Ukrainian trace in the terrorist attack is confirmed, there must be a clear answer on the battlefield.” Note the “if.” Hmm. Were they headed to Ukraine or not?
Putin puppet Dimitri Medvedev said that any Ukrainian leaders found to be involved would be “destroyed.”
Naturally, Ukrainian leaders in Kiev were aghast at the attempts to blame them. Vladimir Zelenskyy and Ukrainian military intelligence responded by emphatically stating that Ukraine had nothing to do with the incident. Zelenskyy said right away: “Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall. It makes no sense whatsoever.”
It indeed does not.
Zelenskyy furthered: “there is not the slightest doubt that the events in the Moscow suburbs will contribute to a sharp increase in military propaganda [by Putin], accelerated militarization, expanded mobilization, and, ultimately, the scaling up of the war. And also to justify manifest genocidal strikes against the civilian population of Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy described Putin and his cronies as “scum trying to blame it [the attack] on someone else. They always have the same methods. It has happened before. There have been bombed houses, shootings, and explosions. And they always blame others.” He said Putin’s methods are “absolutely predictable.”
They sure are. In the old days back at the KGB offices, Vlad and pals called that dezinformatsiya—disinformation. The Soviet Department of Agitprop excelled at these methods. Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin learned well.
Alas, here’s the major takeaway from this savage attack: The event was awful, ghastly, tragic. Russians rightly view it as one of the worst terrorist incidents ever committed against their people. But it could become much worse if Vladimir Putin and his goons use it as a pretext to do something still more savage to Ukraine. It is chilling to think what that might look like.
No comments:
Post a Comment