Major terrorist attack hits music theater in Moscow.

 

Crocus City Hall burns in Moscow. CBS News/AP.

A major terror attack has occurred in a music theater in Moscow. CBS News. At least 40 people are dead and more than 100 are wounded in one of the worst recent terror attacks. At least four gunmen attacked the Crocus City Hall, shooting civilians with rifles and setting the building on fire. Though Russia is engaged with a war with Ukraine, ISIS is suspected to have carried out the attack, with a claim of responsibility being posted on social media. The US government says those claims are correct and said they warned Russia of a presumptive attack due to their "duty to warn" policy. 

My Comment:

This is a developing story and the casualty figures are already probably out of date. I have seen unconfirmed reports that at least 60 people have died, but who knows what the final number will be. As always with these kinds of attacks, initial reports are often wrong and I would caution against taking information at face value. 

Regardless, this is one of the worst terror attacks to occur since core ISIS was defeated in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, it wasn't core ISIS that took credit for this attack, but ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch. If they are truly the ones that are responsible then that is a concern as it had long been argued that after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS could stage a resurgence there and use it as a base to launch attacks globally. That might have just happened. 

However, there is a lot of doubt about if ISIS was actually the one to do this. And with good reason, Russia is at war with both Ukraine (de jure) and NATO (de facto) and it's not like there hasn't been terrorist attacks inspired by that conflict in Russia before. I tend to disagree with that theory as those terror attacks have exclusively happened at border towns near Ukraine, not deep in the heart of Russia. It's possible, but unlikely. 

Other candidates raised for this attack are varied and range from "maybe possible" to "yeah right". I have seen people blaming the CIA, France, Russia itself, Armenia and even Israel, which makes little sense. None of those outcomes are likely and I still think the most likely culprit is ISIS itself, given their long history of terror attacks abroad and in Russia specifically. 

What is clear is that Russia needs to beef up their internal security. Supposedly this venue had guards but the guards were unarmed and could do nothing to stop the slaughter. Given the fact that Russia is in a war with Ukraine and has a long history Islamic terrorism, I think it would be wise of them to loosen up their gun laws and allow civilians to get CCW permits. It might not have stopped this attack but it would have at least slowed these attackers down and bought time for Russian police and security forces to respond. 

It's also rather rich seeing Western world leaders condemn this attack despite being in a de facto war with Russia. It's incredibly hypocritical to condemn when civilians are killed in a terrorist raid but not when civilians are killed by Ukrainian shelling, especially when we are the ones that give them the weapons. Either Russia is our enemy or not, so either condemn both or neither.