A CNN National Security analyst has admitted that if the Islamic State (ISIS) really were behind the deadly terror attack in Moscow on Friday night then that would be “very embarassing” for Joe Biden.
More than 100 people have been confirmed dead following the attack at a Moscow concert hall on Friday evening in one of the deadliest attacks on Russia in decades. ISIS have claimed responsibility for the massacre.
According to CNN’s Peter Bergen, there are still questions as to whether ISIS really were behind the attack, although intelligence appears to indicate that they were:
Initially, when I saw this, I was a little skeptical, because, typically, if you’re an ISIS fighter, you don’t care about getting killed at the scene of the crime. You don’t — you’re not looking for a getaway, you’re looking to martyr yourself. So, in this case, it looks like the people did get away, according to the Russians. And that isn’t sort of typical for an ISIS-type attack.
However, the fact that it’s not just the Americans who had intelligence in their system about ISIS presence in Moscow, it turns out that the Russians did, too. Otherwise, why would Russian state television report on March 7 about a plan to attack a Moscow synagogue by ISIS? So, I don’t know. It isn’t absolutely typical of their M.O. But, certainly, ISIS has attacked concert venues in the past.
Bergen added that the key issue for Biden is where the terrorists were trained, particularly if it was in the now Talbian-controlled country of Afghanistan:
In, Paris, you recall in 2015, they killed 130 people, most — many of them were attending a concert. And, obviously, this work could well be — it could be just what it — as this group says. I’m still looking for evidence, and, hopefully, we’ll identify who these people are relatively quickly. Are they Tajiks? Are they Chechens? If they’re part of ISIS. Did they train in Afghanistan? That’s a very big question here.
Obviously, that would be very embarrassing for the Biden administration if it turned out that ISIS-K has sort of re-grouped to the extent that they can reach out to other countries [and] carry out major attacks at a time when they’re responsible for the withdrawal from — of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Under the Trump administration, ISIS were completely obliterated by an aggressive and effective military campaign against targets in Afghanistan and across the Middle East. However, it appears they have managed to regroup in recent years, partially as a result of Joe Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Their reported resurgence elevates the risk of terror attacks across the U.S. and Europe, which had become commonplace before Trump took office in 2016.