Reuters on Monday cited three anonymous sources who said the government of Iran warned Russia about an impending “terrorist operation” several days before the brutal Crocus City Hall massacre on March 22.
The report, if confirmed, would be significant because Russian officials have been striving to implicate the United States and Ukraine in the attack.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre soon after it was perpetrated, to the embarrassment of the Putin regime, which had been accusing the U.S. of conjuring the specter of Islamist terrorism as a “boogeyman” to protect Ukraine. Russian officials quickly shifted to a new narrative of blaming the United States for somehow creating ISIS in the first place and accusing Ukraine of conspiring with the Islamic terrorists to help the attackers escape.
The U.S. insisted it warned Russia that a major terrorist attack was brewing two weeks before ISIS gunmen murdered more than 130 people and wounded hundreds more at a music festival at the Crocus City Hall venue. The American intelligence community said it acted out of a “duty to warn” even hostile governments of impending terrorism.
A view shows the burnt-out Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, on March 26, 2024. (NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP)
“It is abundantly clear that ISIS was solely responsible for the horrific attack in Moscow last week. In fact, the United States tried to help prevent this terrorist attack, and the Kremlin knows this,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
According to Reuters’ sources, Iran offered Russia a similar warning that confirmed what U.S. intelligence was telling Moscow.
“Days before the attack in Russia, Tehran shared information with Moscow about a possible big terrorist attack inside Russia that was acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran,” one of the sources said.
A second source confirmed Iran obtained actionable intelligence from the dozens of suspected ISIS members it arrested after deadly bomb attacks in the city of Kerman in early January. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the bombings, which targeted a commemoration ceremony for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani.
Destroyed cars and emergency services near the site where two explosions, in quick succession, struck a crowd in the southern Iranian city of Kerman on January 3, 2024. (TASNIM NEWS/AFP via Getty Images)
“They were instructed to prepare for a significant operation in Russia,” the second source said of the ISIS operatives that Iran interrogated. “One of the terrorists said some members of the group had already traveled to Russia.”
“As Iran has been a victim of terror attacks for years, Iranian authorities fulfilled their obligation to alert Moscow based on information acquired from those arrested terrorists,” said the third source.
The story could prove especially embarrassing for the Putin regime because Iran is one of its few remaining diplomatic allies after the invasion of Ukraine. It would be difficult for Russia President Vladimir Putin to explain to grieving Moscow families why his intelligence services ignored a warning from Tehran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (Contributor/Getty Images)
Russian officials have been scrambling to show a strong response to the Crocus City Hall massacre. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, said on Monday it disrupted a “terrorist cell” in southern Russia that allegedly provided weapons and funding to the Moscow attackers.
The FSB said it detained four members of the cell in Dagestan who “directly participated” in the March 22 attack by “financing the perpetrators” and “providing them with terror means.”
The Russian security agency said one of the suspects confessed to giving weapons to the Crocus City Hall terrorists. Another said his/her cell was planning a similar attack in Dagestan. The suspects were identified only as “foreign nationals,” which could mean they were from Tajikistan, as with the four alleged perpetrators of the assault.
One of the suspects of the deadly terror attack on the Crocus City Hall is seen before appearing at the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia, on March 24, 2024. (Sefa Karacan/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Financial Times noted Monday that polls purportedly show most Russians agreeing with Putin that Ukraine played some role in the Crocus City Hall attack. More than 50 percent of respondents in one poll said they believed Ukraine was involved, while only 27 percent believed the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility. Six percent said they thought the United States, United Kingdom, and/or NATO were involved in the attack.
