Russia kills ISIS members who took hostages in a prison.

 

Police and National Guard at the scene of the incident. BBC/Rex/Shutterstock.

Russia has killed six ISIS terrorists who had taken guards as hostages in a prison in Rostov-on-Don. BBC.  The terrorists were held in a pretrial detention center awaiting trial for terrorism charges and for being members of ISIS. They managed to smuggle in phones, knives and ISIS flags into prison and were able to break out of their cell. They took several guards hostage and were said to have "serious intentions". They demanded a vehicle, weapons and freedom. However, Russia responded with a raid that killed all six of the hostage takers and successfully saved the lives of the hostages with no injuries reported. 

My Comment:

This goes to show that ISIS terrorists remain a threat even if they have been detained and imprisoned. This incident could have gone a lot worse and it's a minor miracle that nobody outside of the terrorists were killed or injured. Good on the Russians for taking these guys out in a successful raid. 

It is embarrassing that the Russians allowed the ISIS attackers to get weapons and phones in their prison. To be fair, our own prisons have the same issues, but American prisoners have more rights than Russians and you would think that they would have better security than this. Especially with ISIS fighters, you would think that they would be under a lot more security than the average prisoner. 

ISIS has a history of breaking out of prisons. If memory serves there as a massive post-war escape in Syria that freed hundreds of fighters. In this case it didn't work but it should not have come as a surprise that these ISIS fighters tried to do this. It's almost to be expected at this point.

Russia has a long history of dealing with ISIS, indeed, the most recent major ISIS attack was the Moscow theater attack that left 145 people dead. That's far from the only attack, ISIS has killed hundreds of Russians and given Russia's major Muslim population, I think they will continue to have major problems with them, even though their main focus remains Ukraine. 

As for ISIS this just goes to show that defeating them on the battlefield has not ended the threat. These folks were in prison and were still a threat and there are thousands of ISIS fighters and sympathizers still out there. They will remain a threat for years to come, regardless what happens to the core ISIS organization. 

I also expect another major terror attack, either from ISIS or another Islamic terror group, to happen in the United States soon. Not only has core ISIS started to regroup after their defeats in Syria and Iraq, Islamic terrorists will draw inspiration and outrage from the war in Gaza. I think it's only a matter of time before they pull something off, either directly or due to inspiring a "lone wolf" attacker...