Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.
December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”
January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.
Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).
Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.
And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.
The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.
All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.
The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.
Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.
Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.
Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.
Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.
Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.
The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.
The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.
After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.
That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.
The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs
Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.
One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.
Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.
Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).
The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.
But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.
The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.
But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.
Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.
In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Apart from the contradiction between "they were clueless goons that got duped" and the "they used their arms like pros, short bursts, accurate shots, etc." lines that seems like some interesting stuff.
It's hard to keep track of which faction of the Chechens is used by whom; the Russians have a whole bunch of them they used a lot in Syria (and a bit in Ukraine apparently) and the Saudis/US et. al. have another bunch, violently opposed to the other group (Remember the Bandar Bush outburst at the time of the Sochi Winter Olympics? Threatening Putin with Chechen suicide bombers ("...who we control..") if he didn't respect gay rights? One of the most insane moments ever). Either way, they are ferocious fighters. These guys definitely weren't that. As I speculated the day after, they were picked to get caught.
It's amazing those dots never get connected; Biden says the pipeline will fall, it gets blown up. Nuland says Russians will have a nasty surprise, terror attack. Just a coincidence, go back to sleep BBC.
No disease is hideous enough to not wish it on Nuland, Blinken and the rest of those ghouls. That evil bitch's talons are all over this mess....no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
2 years between 18 and 27 or something like that....no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
The fact is the thing seemed well planned and the perps could fire a gun, but everything else about this looked distinctly amateur: most especially the use of traceable phones and car for the getaway.
They looked like poor hicks from nowhere hired for a hit and following someone else's plan.
Why you think the FSB gets a believability pass is beyond me btw...No countries Security Services tell the truth unless it suits their geopolitical agenda.
Say they had solid intelligence evidence that lead straight to Budanov and had decided to take him out. Why would they go public and blame Ukraine at this moment when doing so would make him go to ground? Or alternatively consider that there might be useful leverage to be used against one country or another through concealing whatever they have found from the public?
As you doubtless know the British Security Service sold the public a pup over the Scripal incident. Six years later we still don't know what really went down that day. It's a fact that the FSB sure as hell know a damn sight more about that incident than we do...but they've still not told us either: funny that.
Consider the ease with which Americans can stroll into town and shoot (or stab) lots of people with no military training....The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
"Consider the ease with which Americans can stroll into town and shoot (or stab) lots of people with no military training...."
Yea.I was brought up on air-rifles and have also used shotguns. I don't think I would have a problem working out a modern recoilless automatic from scratch. As you say they make school shootings / mass murder pretty easy for fucked up US teenagers.
It's good to listen to the military etc. experts. Larry J reckons they were not well trained at all, just a bunch of unruly Tajiks on coptagon after 'easy' money:
This is a shoddy piece unworthy of Pepe which would not be out of place on the page of a UK tabloid. Are you telling me the following are points of information and not conjecture?
"Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack".
"The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi" (where,s the connection with Budanov?)
"There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers"
"Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all"
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev
"Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani,"(says who?)
"Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson"
"Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA."
"Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward."
"After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions," (so the potential handler has now become the handler)
"Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus"
"The FSB investigation is establishing a trail" "The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere"(ongoing,not concluded)
" As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows..."(so anyone who disagrees is dismissed as not serious?)
"The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay."(so it,s clearly not established)
" the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it:"
In reply to t,I am familiar with the adjective but I have no idea what "a covert" is. I make no attempt at analysis. That said I doubt whether the level of analytical skill is dependent on geographical location. Furthermore while a modus operandi which can be observed copied and utilised by anyone,can invite comparisons,to "betray" a connection to any one individual,rather than "seems obvious",is altogether specious. I find Pepe,s articles,while often contentious,generally thought provoking and well delivered.It,s disappointing to be presented with something that could be the work of any BBC stenographer.
"Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation."
Explosive?Frank Gardner eat your heart out.
Unattributed tittle tattle is neither analysis nor as Keith suggests "points of information". As a comparison I suggest you read John Helmer on the same subject.His information is based on attibuted quotes,links and publicly available statements. As he himself states... "Speculation, however, including analysis of the cui bono, who gains type, the sequence of statements from Washington, and the history of association between the US, British and Ukrainian secret services and Tajik mercenaries, creates a balance of probabilities, but not an explanation beyond reasonable doubt."
I'm as guilty as anyone, more probably , of jumping on circumstantial links and speculating but this post makes a lot of sense as does your other post showing all the equivocation in the original article.
It does seem (cough) that these guys were set-up to be caught but not have enough information to really damage the people that arranged it all. The anonymous online recruitment and collection of weapons seems designed to ensure they didn't have any face to face contact with anyone that mattered.
The FSB finding business cards pointing to various convenient enemies is as suspect as the passports in the 9/11 rubble as noted elsewhere on the board....no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
To ceemac666. Caught again being shit-faced at 2 am trying to respond to your posts. Ultimately agree Pepe was speculative in this piece. One of the reasons why I was 'defending' him was because I was impressed by the fact that he was one of the first pundits that highlighted connections between ISIS K, Ukr and western intelligences (with names) almost immediately after the event, a few days ago, before others jumped on the bandwagon.
I would have thought it's good journalistic practice for such speculative piece to contain lots of 'seems', 'arguably' etc since ultimately he doesn't know and is basically guessing. Nevertheless, he is well informed in a sense that he has travelled a lot and has written about the countries that have connections in that piece e.g. Afghanistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Russia etc.
But, and it's a huge but, he considered that Tajik perps were well trained etc. which is complete bs. I posted the vid earlier in the thread by Larry J where he considered the perps to be badly trained and such: https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1711579606.html
on March 27, 2024, 9:55 am
, of jumping on circumstantial links and speculating but this post makes a lot of sense as does your other post showing all the equivocation in the original article.