Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), to be exact. Looking this over, it seems since November or so, there's been a steady stream of counterterrorism intel pointing to ISIS-K gearing up for attacks in Russia.
I mean, even if you don't believe that, which we know you won't, the IC literally shared anti-terrorism intel (dutifully, I might add) early this month to Russia, warning them of a potential attack by Islamic militants. The US embassy was warning American citizens in Russia to avoid large gatherings... literally trying to save lives, all part of their responsibilities. Russia chose to ignore it, even worse, calling the intel 'provocative' and 'blackmail.' The attack did happen, did it not? And Putin failed to heed the warnings from the US that extremists were plotting to target Moscow. That's the reality.
Apparently, there's also footage of these attackers filming themselves, slitting the throats of victims in the theater while shouting something about Allah being great and infidels being defeated. Those brutal tactics are the kind of shit you would see from Islamic extremists anyhow. But I digress.
Not sure what you're on about here, but okay.
If anything, these terrorists were probably like, "wtf, we've been shooting and executing people for an hour now, and nobody has shown up to try and stop us so
we could go out killing ourselves; what do we do now?" The one-hour response time by Russian law enforcement is beyond shocking and pathetic. Well, no, not really. It's Russia, after all.
In the end, since Russia is involved in this tragic event, we'll never know the true story behind this (the aftermath), as it surely will be twisted into propaganda that serves Putin's ego and goals. Whatever narrative helps him the most will be the one that gets shoved down the Russian populace's throat. The slave hive mind binds Russia together.
Regardless, the US did the right thing here by warning them because it's still important to maintain deconfliction lines even with our adversaries. The US also did the
same thing with Iran recently as well..
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The US intelligence gathering has once again shown to be top notch and everywhere.
Just look at what they've done these past few years. They caught wind that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine months in advance, gave signals intelligence and real-time satellite imagery to the Ukrainians and Israelis to fight Russia and Hamas, and lastly, provided counter-terrorism data to our adversaries even (Iran and Russia) to alert them that Islamic extremists are planning an attack on their soil. I mean... let's give our intelligence officers Medal of Honors here... they're putting in the work.