“The coverage of various media regarding the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall against the audience of a music concert located on the outskirts of Krasnogorsk, Moscow on Friday (23/03) made many people shocked, furious and angry at this behavior which tramples on common sense of humanity which is more than 130 innocent people died due to this terror attack. The peace-loving Indonesian people and government will certainly strongly condemn this barbaric event. The problem is, who is the brain behind this incident? because the field actors have indeed been caught, but who created the terror design is a challenge that must be revealed,” said Intelligence Observer Dede Farhan Aulawi in Bandung, Thursday (28/3).
According to him, an event like this was definitely not designed in a few days, there must have been long planning to arrange the various scenarios. Starting from determining the ‘event’, place, time, people, weapons, financing, transportation, accomodation, division of roles/tasks, escape route, and ‘message construction’ that will be built on the event. Including the discovery of a Kalashnikov assault rifle lying on the floor which could actually be read as a ‘cipher message’ to be deciphered.
From one side, law enforcement efforts will definitely require legal facts as evidence that can be presented at trial. That is why there is a scientific discipline called Scientific Crime Investigation or scientific crime investigation. However, in every intelligence operation, this proof becomes very difficult because of the maturity of the planning that is made. Including the possibility of ‘brainwashing’ for field actors, as well as the disconnected cell system that is run so that field operators certainly don’t know who ordered or paid for them. Even though it can actually be traced from the flow of funds (financial tracing) according to the confession of the person who was caught.
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO RESUME CONTENT
The four defendants in the attack, namely Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Muodali Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov were arrested several hours after the attack and burning of the concert venue. Then 7 further people have also been arrested who are suspected of being involved or related to this incident. This number will probably continue to increase in line with efforts to develop investigations and interrogations. Whoever is the ‘mastermind’ of this incident will definitely be anxious because he is worried that his identity will be revealed, so there will definitely be efforts to eliminate him as the only way to eliminate traces. Therefore, security for defendants and suspects must be extra tight to avoid the possibility of an assassination attempt.
In cases like this, the Russian police or troops can actually take two strategic approaches. First, massive interrogation with mental stressing efforts so that they will provide important information about the incident. Second, with a soft approach, starting from Document Analysis, Interface Analysis, In depth Interviews, Specific Observation, or Prototyping. The approach can use functional and non-functional, both collaborative, special research and ongoing experiments.
The interesting thing is that after this incident occurred, it has actually entered stage two, namely guiding public opinion as to who should be responsible. This technique is carried out as an effort to distance the world’s prejudices and suspicions, a dishwashing technique, aka hands-off, broken links, and the final point of imagining events. This method is commonly used in various world terror incidents involving state actors or ‘important people’.
Three defendants who have been arrested and brought blindfolded and one person using a wheelchair to a Moscow court, is not just an ordinary incident but there is a ‘message’ that wants to be conveyed that Moscow will act firmly against anyone who tries to attack it and there will be consequences. also be firm against any state actor who is the mastermind or at least participates in the attack plan. If field actors can be caught in HOURS, then soon the mastermind will be known in DAYS. And this will have implications for the seriousness of the world security situation.
So far, accusations have been directed at ISIS-K as the Islamic State in Khorasan, or IS-K according to the graphic footage they released. The problem is that there is no causal relationship between the attack and Russia vs ISIS. Moreover, the claim that ‘Russia is considered to often hurt Islamic countries’ is an unreasonable statement of negation, because Russia and Muslims have no problems, in fact Russia is quite firm in supporting Palestinian independence. On the other hand, if we open open sources such as Google, YouTube, and others, including the statement of former National Security Agency (NSA) staff or the United States National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, who stated that there are 3 countries that are responsible for ISIS.
On the other hand, the 4 perpetrators of the attack were caught in the Bryansk region and were ready to cross the Ukrainian border when they were arrested, so it is suspected that Ukraine was ‘playing’, even though the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has denied this claim. Of course there is some data and other information that cannot be expressed vulgarly in the media, but it is very important to provide a little enlightenment to the public so that they do not become objects of misinformation (disception) in the midst of the current rapid wave of information. This includes an early warning from the US National Security Council to Russia about potential attacks on “large gatherings”, including a concert in Moscow earlier this month. The next day, the White House also condemned the “despicable” attack.
It should be noted that the Islamic State of Khorasan Province or also known as IS-K, sometimes also ISIS-K, is the official affiliate of the ISIS movement operating in Afghanistan. It was founded by former members of the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and began to consolidate territory in the southern districts of Nangarhar province, which lies on Afghanistan’s northeastern border with Pakistan and is a former al-Qaida stronghold in the Tora Bora region. The vanguard was Hafiz Saeed Khan, a veteran Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander, and brought with him other prominent TTP members, including the group’s spokesman Sheikh Maqbool.
Meanwhile, Head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin claimed that the United States (US), Britain and Ukraine were behind Moscow’s attacks with the aim of destabilizing Russia. In this context, it will certainly be quite difficult to draw formal threads as a means of proving the relationship between ISIS-K and the alleged western countries. This is the challenge for Russian Intelligence agents to be able to prove it so that the truth will be revealed, and the massacre of humanity will not happen again.
“What is no less interesting is the relationship between ISIS and the Taliban, who never got along and became mortal enemies. ISIS and the Taliban have very different principles, missions and visions, starting from small matters regarding religious interpretation to group strategy. Both groups claim to be groups that represent Islamic jihad. So the Taliban Security Service has so far tried to prevent the growth of this group. The remaining question is whether they acted on their own initiative? Or is there someone who conditions it with all the supporting attributes? “Hopefully the passage of time can reveal everything correctly,” concluded Dede.
