A SERIES of shocking clues have fuelled speculation that the Moscow massacre could have been enabled by Russia in a sick bid to blame Ukraine.
Despite ISIS claiming responsibility for the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall on Friday night that left 137 dead, experts are sceptical about the true masterminds behind the hit.
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Horrifying footage showed four gunmen storming into the building before unleashing hell at the crowd in Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in 20 years.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bloodbath that saw children among the dead twice but a raging Vladimir Putin was quick to place blame on Ukraine and vowed revenge.
However, Russia experts and a Wagner defector who told the ICC that the Kremlin had ordered “atrocities” in Ukraine have noted several bizarre occurrences on the night of the terror attack.
Former GRU Colonel Igor Salikov says that police units supposedly disappeared around the time of the attack, while Vlad’s elite forces stationed nearby also failed to show.
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He claims it all points to a “botched inside job” by the FSB or a poorly executed response by Russian emergency services.
Another key detail is the amateur way the four gunmen handled their Kalashnikov machine guns despite ISIS fighters undergoing weapons training.
The venue was also hit by a massive blaze that destroyed part of the building – with Salikov noting it couldn’t have been anything else but Spetsnaz white phosphorus grenades.
Vlad’s elite special forces are believed to have used white phosphorus while carrying out attacks in Ukraine.
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He then points out that the psychological profile of the gunmen is inconsistent with ISIS fighters – who would proudly die for their deeds rather than being arrested and tortured.
Brit Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon also told The Sun that the attack had all “the hallmarks of Russian false flag attacks”.
He pointed out that Russia’s security is “absolutely watertight” and it appears “almost too perfect for four people to wander in there and kill 137 people.”
Warning from CIA and MI6
The attack comes after the US and UK intelligence warned Russia about an imminent terror attack weeks before the deadly hit – but the Kremlin ignored the warning.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Sun: “First of all CIA and MI6 warned Russia it was likely to be an Islamist terrorist attack in exactly this sort of situation. That’s not unremarkable itself.
“Then of course we had the Putin sham election. Moscow is one of the most heavily policed places on the planet.
“If you even mutter any antiwar sentiment you are arrested.”
Western intelligence agencies told Russia of an imminent IS threat two weeks before Friday’s horror attack unfolded.
Putin received the intelligence on March 7 — the same day terror suspect Shamsuddin Fariddun was seen on a recce at the concert hall.
Three days before the attack, arrogant Putin said of the warnings: “It resembles outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilise our society.”
Swift arrest of suspects
The group of masked men, wielding automatic weapons, stormed the Crocus City Hall on Friday night.
Some 6,000 people are believed to have been inside the venue watching Russian rock band Picnic when the bloodshed began.
The gunmen began shooting civilians at point-blank range and hurling explosives at the crowd.
In the immediate wake of the attack, Russia’s security service the FSB launched a massive manhunt to catch the attackers.
Two were apprehended after a car chase and two others fled into a forest before being detained.
Dramatic footage shows the moment the four suspects were dragged in for interrogation after they were accused of slaughtering 137.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon cast doubt over the venue’s security wondering how “the four terrorists just waltzed in there” with Russian special forces being about a mile away from the venue.
He added: “Very quickly afterwards the Russians arrest four suspects who conveniently allegedly were heading towards Ukraine and less than 48 hours later they appear in court. It just doesn’t add up.
“Even the best security services in the world would be pushed to follow something like that up so quickly.
“Whatever explanation Russia gives, we don’t believe it. It’s either the Islamic State or a false flag.
“Might be the Russians are paying ISIS a fortune to in a bit quid pro quo not to attack elsewhere or maybe even the Russians are helping them prepare to attack some Western capitals.
“It’s all unclear at the moment but false flag certainly shouldn’t be ruled out because it’s what Russians do.”
Precedent for similar ‘false flag’ attack
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon noted this wouldn’t be the first time Russia has conducted a false flag operation.
He referenced the 1999 apartment bombings that would spark the Second Chechen War.
In September 1999, four apartment blocks in Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk were hit by explosions.
A total of 307 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured, in the attacks that were blamed on terrorists from the breakaway region of Chechnya.
But there has been widespread speculation the FSB was behind the attack that then PM Vladimir Putin used to justify launching an air assault on the Chechen capital, triggering the second full-scale war in the region.
And now 25 years later, insiders suggest that it’s possible history is repeating itself.
‘Disappearance’ of police and security
Russian military intelligence GRU Colonel Igor Salikov who claimed he witnessed “atrocities against civilians” questions how the culprits were able to enter the venue in the first place.
According to information from Russian sources, police and security services vanished from the venue around 7pm, before the masked gunmen stormed the building.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon emphasizes the ease with which the gunmen entered the building and notes that usually, Russian security is “absolutely watertight.”
He said: “It just seems too much of a setup for four people to wander in there and kill 137 people – it’s almost too perfect, it doesn’t smell right.”
Lack of training
Another key element that raised suspicion over the attack was the amateur way the four gunmen handled their weapons.
The four men stormed the building wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles – but Salikov is not convinced they knew how to use them.
He notes that footage showing one of the attacker’s Kalashnikov machine guns getting jammed indicates a very basic level of training – that doesn’t align with ISIS.
He says that this “puts serious questions about who chose these gunmen to be on the team.”
ISIS-K is a terror splinter cell of highly-trained fighters originally formed in 2015, carrying out brutal suicide bombings and vile ceremonial executions.
The “K” refers to the historical region of Greater Khorasan, which included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Despite efforts from the West, the former Afghan government and the Taliban to fight them back – they seized on the chaos sown by the country’s collapse and quickly established a reputation for extreme brutality.
Earlier this month, the top US general in the Middle East said ISIS-K could attack US and Western interests outside of Afghanistan “in as little as six months and with little to no warning.”
Anti-terror cops took an hour to arrive
It is Russia’s worst terror attack in 20 years and the deadliest in Europe to have been claimed by ISIS.
Yet in the immediate aftermath of the attack, it took authorities over an hour to arrive at the venue.
Russia’s anti-terror Spetsnaz should have been on site within minutes – something that did not happen.
The Rosgvardiya National Guard base is only two miles away from the venue – but officers took over an hour to arrive.
Firefighters and emergency workers rushed to the scene and were tasked with going through the ruins to find victims.
Self-proclaimed “Russian diplomat in exile” Boris Bondarev posted on X: “Moscow shootings make me think of two things: absolute absence of safety for ordinary people despite ever-growing enforcement apparatus; and second, it smells a false-flag operation.”
Blaming Ukraine
Ukrainian think tank Ukrainian Center to Counter Disinformation blamed the Russian Special Services saying in a statement they planned the attack “in order to blame Ukraine and find an excuse for a new mobilisation in Russia”.
And even though ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack twice, Russia has insisted Western forces are at play.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova cast doubt over the terror group’s claims of responsibility.
In a piece published in the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, she wrote: “Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s ISIS? Might you think again about that?”
Ukraine was quick to deny any involvement in the wake of the attack – and claimed it was a false flag attack to stoke tensions.
In a statement, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said: “There are no red lines for Putin’s dictatorship. It is ready to kill its own citizens for political purposes.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky even branded Vladimir Putin a “low-life b*****d” for trying to shift the blame for the Moscow massacre onto Kyiv.
He said it was “absolutely predictable” that Putin would seize the moment of national horror to point the finger at Ukraine.
“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obviously something that Putin and other b*****ds are just trying to blame on someone else,” he said.
“That low-life Putin, instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, was silent for a day, thinking about how to bring it to Ukraine.
“Everything is absolutely predictable.”
Gunmen arrested
On Sunday four men accused of opening fire on crowds were forced into a courtroom bloodied and bruised.
Moscow’s Basmanny district court charged the four men with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov.
It said the men, identified by Russian media as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be remanded in pre-trial custody until May 22.
Three of the four had pleaded guilty to all charges.
It comes as gruesome footage showing Russian forces torturing the ISIS terror suspects has emerged.
A shocking picture shows a man being given electric shocks to his genitals as he foamed at the mouth while another had his ear cut off and then force-fed back to him.
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Another shocking clip showed a suspect having his ear cut off and then force-fed back to him.
Meanwhile, a third man was filmed tied up and shivering near a forest as interrogators shouted questions at him.
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Source: Sun
