It seems more and more unlikely that it was ISIS-KP that was responsible for the massacre at the Crocus City Hall. It seems likely that the actual shooters were from Tajikistan. Several of them were paid to do the atrack and was recruited through Telegram. This is not the typical ISIS modus operandi. They use very committed islamic fanatics, not hired mercenaries. Somebody probably hoped that all shooters would be killed and that a forged, by outdated communication methods, ISIS admission would be enough to convince the world that it was a jihadist terror attack.
But since it wasn’t fanatics that longed for death and heaven, the shooters instead tried to survive. Somebody tried to frame it as a jihadist terror attack. In law enforcement you often ask who benefits from it.
So the question is who benefits from:
– Increased division between Russia and the Muslim world
– Increased division inside Russia between the Orthodox russian majority and the Muslim minorities. – A loss of faith in the government since it couldn’t prevent a large terrorist attack
– Creating a feeling in the Russian population of fighting a war on many directions at the same time. Not only towards the West and Ukraine, but now also with the jihadists.
The main benefactors are of course Ukraine and its western backers. So the main suspicions fall on them as being the original organisers of the attack. We have no proof of anything yet but if I was forced to guess I would hazard a guess on groups connected with the Ukrainian military intelligence GUR, maybe without official sanction from the government in Kiev.
I know that many hard core proukrainians will say that it’s a Russian false flag operations. If we look at that idea, what would Russia have to gain and loise from such an operation.
Gains:
– Loss of support in the West for Ukraine
– Strengthening of public support in Russia for the war
– Public support for a large scale mobilisation
Drawbacks:
– Uncertainty if Russia could convincingly put the blame on Ukraine
– A huge risk of a total loss of both public support within Russia and on the international stage if the false flag operation was discovered.
– A false flag operation of this scale would force Kreml to sacrifice many innocent Russian lives, which only the real haters of Russia believe that the leadership in Russia would even consider. I believe that all states sometimes use false flag operations, but normally without casualties among it’s own civilian population.
Beside these drawback there would also be the risk that the negative effects from a jihadist attack I mentioned above with heightened tension with the Muslim world, internal conflicts, loss of faith in the government etc created by their own doing.
Even if you believe that Russian authorities could do such a false flag operation towards its own population, it would be to risky and have to little benefits for Russia. Russia has the upper hand in the war and war tiredness is spreading in the West. Trump might be elected president in the US in November. The number of volunteers are high for the RuAF. Russia doesn’t need a mobilisation, but if they wanted to mobilise 500 000 men they could do it without broader political consequences within Russia, since Putin is reelected with a landslide for 6 years.
My conclusion is that a false flag is highly unlikely and an ISIS attack unlikely. Sherlock Holmes eliminated the most unlikely culprits and then the remaining one is the most likely to have done it. That leaves us with groups associated to the Ukrainian GUR, known for a number of strikes against Russia and Russians, and with a leader that has said that he will continue to kill Russian in Russia but also around the World. New info can change my conclusions
On the videos you se a suspect being apprehended in the Bryansk area and other suspects tell us that they did it for money and was hired through Telegram.