Beleg85
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Posts posted by Beleg85
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1 hour ago, billbindc said:
It's pretty clear that ISIS-K wants to recruit more members of ISIS-K in Russia at this stage of the game by committing acts of terrorism that inflame an already quite hostile Russian cultural reaction to Muslims from the Southern fringe of the imperium which then alienates and radicalizes yet more potential recruits. To this end, an attack like that at Crocus also provides a clear signal that Moscow isn't just nasty...but weak, preoccupied completely by the losing war in Ukraine and not prepared to handle what ISIS-K can dish out.
Russia did actually lean into pretty much what ISIS-K could have hoped for with televised tortures, ear lopping and the like...which is precisely the worst way to equalize both sides in the minds of fence sitters and videos of Russians assaulting random Tajiks are all over the Stans as we speak. What meh there was involved the messaging from the top...which underlined the how out of of touch the Kremlin is.
All in all, ISIS-K has to feel pretty good about this round.
We are just at the start of it. There is a good rule to wait with assessment of deeper societal effects of any terrorist acts for a month or even better- several. Kremlin will spin it more coherently, don't worry, especially when detainees will start to sign. I am also not sure about public torture and humilation as supposedly failed deterrents to potentiall islamists in russia itself; having one's balls fried publically by electricity is quite another thing than going straight into jannah in some glorified impersonal blast. Potentiall candidates will have a lot to think about, especially if they come from less-bellicose Central Asiatics rather than traditionally more troublesome Caucasian islamists.
Anybody remembers Beirut and what Soviets did when their ambassador was kidnapped? In Russia it is considered one of greatest feats of counter-terrorism in their history, source of pride for another generations and way these things should be done- as opposed to actual hostage rescues, which mostly went catastrophic for them. None Western states purposefully and openly (Abu Ghraib was kept hidden) did anything like that as response to islamic terrorism and public tortures are de mode for something like two and a half centuries already.
Kremlin will also benefit in short term in perhaps more tolerance for press-ganging some poor muslim peons (they will likely have several dozens thousand recruits more), but even then people from Central Asia will find it attractive to live and earn in Moscow. They simply lack other choice.
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57 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
- Blame Game - accuse the other team of supporting terrorism
- Excuse Abuse - kinda what Russia is trying to play now..use attack or threat as a reason for X.
- Claymore - keep pointed away from me and at them
- Enemy of my enemy - weird one night stands
- Intelligence collection - eyes and ears in strange nooks and crannies
- Proxy foxy insurgency - rashes and sores in countries of opposing interest. Sometime they even went all the way if conditions were right.
- Money! Yup sometimes they just made money together
- Golden Oldies - subversive warfare, active measures and general f#ckery
And we are headed right back to it…but now with Internet! The good news is that groups that got too out of control got clipped by both sides, which led to another play - Weird Buddy Roadtrip Comedy. This was when the superpowers actually cooperated to take out really crazy.
This would make fantastic mini-series if done right, which current Hollywood naturally won't be able to do. Especially Proxy Foxy episode seems interesting.
But hey, lately Lukaszenko is in the "Swagging villain from 60-ies" mood that Putin can only try to mimick, so maybe he could be main antagonist:
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40 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
The problem for Putin is that if he needs to whip up the population to do something about the domestic terrorism problem, is he then going the story that the ISIS-K paid the CIA to direct Ukraine to then hire out ISIS-K to carry out the attack?
Steve
Very likely something like this will emerge one day. And this will be the end of ISIS as true edgy islamists.
They don't know in what dump they just stepped in. What is their ideology of silly millenaristic sect compared to Black Hole of Russian reality ?
1 hour ago, billbindc said:The downsides to a political regime held together by fear, duct tape and conspiracy theories...
Blue jumper or winter jacket they say...
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2 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:
Speaking of blaming the CIA, as battlefront's resident worker democracy advocate I am sad to report that certain tendencies on social media are buying a narrative:
-That ISIS is a cia proxy,
-That like Beleg noted, the US warning is seen as confirmation of that,
-And that further evidence of them being puppets is that ISIS is not attacking Israel at the moment.
There are truly embarrassing people who identify with the movements.
Add countries of former Third World as consumers of such narrations; notion that United States is behind every jihadi movement on the planet is not fringe there at all and will find very fertile ground. Middle East, India, large swaths of Africa, some South America... likely guys meeting at Valdai club are now more important as points of referance for Putin than contrarians in the West. Syrian Girl and similar global vatnik propagandists are just a cherry on top of that, appealing to roughly the same people they always did.
It seems Coke Plant is still not safe place for Russians despite being captured long time ago.
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2 hours ago, billbindc said:
I think we need to be wary of this sort of Russian exceptionalism. This stuff works...as it did for the Soviets, for the Tsars, for Saddam, for Mao...until it doesn't. "Working" in this context means simply that it delays the day of reckoning in the same sense that a man frantically bailing water out of a sinking boat does.
Oh, definitelly there is the limit to that, usually proportionall to its size, might and importance on global stage (which in this case is sadly significant). I simply descibed how messaging from Kremlin may look like in nearest future and why we shouldn't read too much into what will seem like incoherence between various narrations. It's not proof this entire system soon breaks apart, but neither that it is super intelligent, always centred on "what Westerners will think about me and how convince them". It simply works on slightly different framework than we are accustomed to when comes to power, identity, place in the world etc.- it's a fact, otherwise I see no explanation how it can serve such ungodly amounts of human meat further into this idiotic confict to only reassure itself it is still empire.*
To use my golem comparision, so far we (or rather Ukranians) didn't applied enough crushing force to break this strange creature...so it just sits there, hitting with fists while broken at many palces and shaken by progressively more absurd internal troubles, but visibly expecting that its dumb inertia will carry it over to some solution.
*Or even worse thought sometimes come to mind- if Ms. Kabaieva would be more ingenious in her mistress duties served to this aging autocrat, perhaps all this bloody quagmire eating people could be avoided. But I seriously doubt it.
3 hours ago, Kinophile said:I'm surprised Boris Johnson isn't in any of those crowd photos...
https://tass.com/emergencies/1766181
Bortnikov, who always looks like this unwilling last hangman who is very sorry he must be there to cut your head off (I frankly think he is in serious depression), blame United Kingdom. Probably more evidence will surface soon.
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24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Putins is not a mastermind, he is plate spinning. At this point the world’s second largest nuclear power is being held together like a bad I Love Lucy skit. And no one even bother to try and pull the “poor westerner…you simply do not understand the Russian mindset” card…this was about as dumb a damage control play as could have been made. And no mystical Russian voodoo/goat hypnosis is going to change that.
Well, in most of our countries, unless hijacked by radical populists, government messaging must be roughly consistent on all levels. In Russia it doesn't. It it entriely possible their propagandists and even Putin himself talk about CIA hands in this (this is for domestic audence, and there may be in the same time contradictory messages at different segments of it), while their diplomats will send flowers and chocolades like crazy to Western partners with hidden messages like "Let's Meet at midgnight near Metternich statue, we will talk from bottom of our heart how together fight islamistic menace".
For me it is not so much a novelty as a proof that Putin does not calculate Western public in his major endevours like some specialists in the field still seem to think. That ship sailed; multipolar order now or never. From utilitarian angle, you are right it would be most productive for him to actually amplify ISIS trace; his diplomacy may actually still do that behind the doors. Who knows, if pressured consistently it could one day (after and during elections in US) be a trump card in "normalization" process or at least a tool to shift balance of part of American public. But Putin is too far on his geopolitical voyage for that. Love us how we are it or leave us, is his message for vatniks and opportunists in the West.
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
And worse, Russian intelligence and security failed to pick this threat up when it was coming out of a country they currently have in a choke hold?
Putin very visibly blamed US in his speech ("by hands of Kyiv regime"- note, Ukraine is only triggerman here) and in Russian imperial psyche it is not disgraceful to be smashed by superior Yanks. In other words, it was planned and executed by CIA- earlier US warnings will only support this line of thinking. They are read as threats rather than genuine information, even if we actually know now they were taken seriously in many places in Russia:
https://twitter.com/PjotrSauer/status/1772268163775840437
I am pretty sure that as time goes by we will see more "evidence" and propagandists in Russia and abroad will gradually work on minds of populace. 1-2 years from now heads of half of them will be in this strange, shadowy place Kremlin loves to be in- "Who knows, it's mysterious matter, everybody lies but most probably it's foreign agents".
Unless more similar acts will follow on behalf of IS-K, and fast, original simple message of islamic terror will be bended, broken and reforged dozen times. Also Kremlin propaganda will be multi-directed like always: Margo Simonyan, Solovyov and other scum will work on Ukraine trace (latter probably soon find out extra lead to UK anyway), Putin will wrestle with heroic geopolitical fight with USA (UA is beyond his dignity), Kadyrov will keep unruly parts of muslims for their faces and perhaps only Lavrov will have new tool to show how Russia suffers from US-sponsored jihadi menace, with wink sended here and there that perhaps they could use it as platform of further cooperation like proper empires should do.
Things will then likely gradually go back to its natural life cycle in Muscovia. Tsar is taking care fo its flock at the Kremlin, evil nazis are in Ukraine, globalists interests kept outside and their domestic opposition assets jailed. Like God commanded.
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30 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:
Oh, I agree it doesn't make sense. But none of it does.
False flag is too messy for too little pay-off.
Real ISIS attack seems to be most likely, as indeed seems consensus here, but I'd be amazed if the currently nabbed guys are it. Which doesn't make sense either.
Almost feel bad for those jihadists; simpletons don't even comprehend in what swamp of contradictory realities they packed themselves in with their terror message directed at Kremlin.
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1 hour ago, Haiduk said:
Cargo aviation increased activity on Rzeszow airfield. For last day 5 cargo planes arrived. This may be due to Pentagon agreed to allocate 4 billions USD of own reserves for ammunition for Ukriane, so because of this such increased activity. Russian media claimed about 300 tons of military cargo has delivered to Rzeszow in last two days.
Add that there were convoys with stuff from previous tranches crossing the border barely week or so ago; military trucks go both ways constantly, so it is sometimes difficult to say what is coming from new batches.
48 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:So, according to one of the Tajiks confessing after a thorough beating, he was a rando contracted for the attack via Telegram two weeks ahead of time and subsequently armed for it by persons unknown to him.
All their confessions are bollocks by this point. Russian security apparatus by default force everybody to admitt to old script: "mysterious smoking guy - phone- money". Money must be involved, since Russian public expect that evil guys will most likely be mercenaries, without motherland, ethics, convictions etc. This further strenghen need for patriotic narrations and vigilance of potentiall traitors; it's stupid, but it works that way there. Society believing in shadow actors behind every corner is easier to controll, and as strange as it sounds, regular jihadists are too banal for that- they are like force of nature, such mind cannot blame them seriously. Naturally from that point Kremlin may direct narration on desired villains (Ukraine, CIA, opposition).
Also, worth to add "X-files" was very popular there in its own time.
48 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:My other line of thinking is that ISIS are not known for working directly but via middlemen. What if the middlemen were Russian? But then, what exactly is their play? Sowing chaos? They hardly needed terror attacks to get their security services more power to do whatever they want.
To blame Ukraine? Maybe, but then ISIS-K claims it and taints that scenario, even though clearly they are trying to play the Ukraine card anyway. But it seems a lot of trouble to go through for dubious payoff. Not that confusion isn't bread and butter of Russian PsyOps.
No petty middlemen would do such an act, there are 1000s of things that could go wrong, including quite probable that some policeman accidently arrived on the scene or somebody in vicinity being armed and simply playing sheriff (that was btw. reason why Beslan became such a slaughter- neighbours took matters in their own hands and started uncontrolled firefight with terrorists). All jhadi acts are conducted by jihadis, usually they die in the process, this is very much a given.
Kremlin had little initiative to procure false flag this way, we discussed it quite extensively last several pages. I could out of hand imagine 20 scenarios that would make more sense from their perspective.
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Anoter airstrike, this time on Odessa. Unfortunatlly they likely hit something, judging by afterexplosions sounds.
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Results of last airstrike. Russians claim that Kinzals were used to target among others "seat of Ukrainian special services" and Patriot batteries places at Zhuliany airport.
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2 hours ago, Offshoot said:
Disgustingly hypocritical generic crap. A day and a half might not even be considered regular for this.
Four lines of cocaine + bottle of vodka and when morning comes this guy can deliver some dumb text half the length of Mahabharata if daddy Putin really wants, without AI help. On russkiy after all.
Btw. artists are one of most slimmy, bootlicking group in Russia. 75% of local musical pop scene is like that and possibly much more among filmmakers. Those with spine mostly left many years ago.
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Unusual protection against drones on one Russian BMP. Looks like anti-pigeon hedhehog.
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2 hours ago, omae2 said:
I get why we are look like nutjobs, because we only have doubt but no proof. But any of you saw the faces of the killers on the recordings? Even on the bodycam footage their face is blurred their voice is distorted. I don't want to keep argue about nothing cause we have nothing to prove our point. I'm just saying that this whole thing stinks.
Clothes, postures and hair are identical. Their faces are visible on car camera recordings as well as this white car that was later stopped, but I get the last argument is weaker. What about sudden hacking of all global jihadi media outlets?
Every violent and controversial event in Russia stinks. It's motherland of all global conspiracy theories by default.
1 hour ago, The_Capt said:Dear Gawd, please tell me we are talking about this:
Mighty scenography.
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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
My point here is that the US has a very well known issue with "active shooters". It's one of the most talked about and most planned for crisis responses that police have focused on. And yet, despite hundreds of police officers, they completely failed to follow the very first rule (that even I know!!) which is you DO NOT WAIT A SECOND when there's an active shooter. And yet... they screwed up.
Now, I believe the problem in Moscow is the result of far bigger problems than what I just described in the US. However, we should keep criticism in perspective.
Steve
Yeah we should definitelly, but also note that Russia also witnessed several bloody incidents of active shooters in recent years; reasons may be different than in US, but they have their own "Columbine effect" too, despite more restriction on firearms (probably militarization of younger strata of society, rolling already before the war, is one of factors). Very few effective adjustments to procedures were made since then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhevsk_school_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perm_State_University_shooting
1 hour ago, kraze said:This morning russian propagandist singer Shaman posted a video with a fully mixed and mastered song about this terrorist act. The guy and his team must be really really talented to fully write, arrange and produce a song and a video in just 1.5 days.
Islamic State did literally everything to prove it was them, including publication of photos, own-made clips from scene which was corroborated by all dependable intelligence agencies. Unless you suggest Russians somehow hacked now into all official IS media outlets and captured their entire narration.
Shaman may be on drugs or using previous template. Also, he is not exactly James Joice either, but banal composer for masses.
Nice clip from Novokuibyshchevsk rafinery drone strike; curious how suddenly these drones are loosing high at the target, it almost look like diving bombers from WWII.
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9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
To give Russians a little bit of a break, this sort of thing is very difficult to defeat with any degree of certainty. Worse, the groups that want to attack have endless time and opportunities to figure out how to be successful.
There's an old saying about situations like this. The Russian security forces have to get it right every single time to be successful. The terrorists only have to get it right once.
Intelligence failure is one thing. But the fact they did managed to slip away and pathetic time of reaction from services is the other - like firefighters not extinguishing the fire due to danger from gunmen and police not entering building due to flames... Also fact that there are so many half-military security formations creates organizational chaos and overlapping competences. On top of that, perhaps most important, is inertia when comes to reponsibility of different branches; everyone wants only to cover their a.s and do nothing extra.
3 hours ago, Haiduk said:Except L'viv oblast, Kryvyi Rih city power infrastructure was hit again (it had time to work one day after reparing), so citizens again remained without electricity and heating. Port infrastructure was hit in Odesa oblast. One Kh-101 missile violatred Polish airspace and was there during 39 seconds, after this it returned on Ukrianian territory. Poland scramble own fighters, but AD systems only tracked the missile, not engaging it.
According to Chief of Airforce here F-16 were scrambled as Russian TU-s were in the air, but there was no firepower in this actual place able to shot down the rocket, which flew for short time along the border several hundred meters deep, on the verge of UA airspace (last time it was 2:30+ sek),. Village is even closer to border than neighbour Przewodów.
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14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
And this, kids, is why you should not play with conspiracy theories. You're likely to get your fingers burned.
Steve
But admitt it, folks; this country sux at so many levels it breaks all measures. One would think that capital of authoritarian state at war with enemy four times smaller, full of all kinds of police, military formations, paramilitary formations, incognito formations on top of entire chain of spies, snitches and cameras would at least be relatively safe from this one type of danger. But hell no, hold my beer and all of that.
Russia long time ago races only with itself; time perhaps for occassional song from enemy camp:
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Apparently they even had time to upload own-made videos from atttack to the Amaq. Easy job for these guys.
https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1771657168665690479
Compared to last actions, modus operandi is similar. Plea, photo of bros with a flag, announcement, some extra clips from inside the attack and later recognition.
So it seems situation is now rather clear (Amaq News is official channel of IS) at least when comes to whom to blame. I wouldn't be surprised they even found a moment to visit drive-thru after hard working day. No hurry.
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34 minutes ago, TheVulture said:
The only mention of location I've seen (in English) has been "the Bryansk Region", which would usually mean "Bryansk Oblast" rather than specifically the city of Bryansk. The M3 from Moscow runs through Bryansk oblast to Ukraine and within 20km or Bryansk city. You could turn off the M3, go through Bryansk and on to a road to southern Belarus, but that's not the shortest way out of Russia into Belarus (it's about 560km, while the shortest route from Moscow is straight toards Minsk and 400km).
If the goal is to get from Moscow, out of the country as quickly as possible, and avoiding Belarus which is not really getting out of reach of Russia, then 500km straight down the M3 to Ukraine (through Bryansk oblast) is the shortest and fastest route.
Good catch. However, speed may not be most important factor here but avoiding patrols. Also as I remember at least before the war there was one of staging points in Gomel for "refugees" ; presence of Middle-Eastern or Central Asiatic guys in Belarus would be suspicious several years ago, but not anymore. There were thousands moving across the country.
Also perhaps most plausible explanation is that these guys didn't think rationally and were perhaps surprised they survived themselves. From all previous attack in Western soil we know that escape is much more difficult than attack itself.
24 minutes ago, Haiduk said:Some adequate people in Russia ask - well, you are Tajiks and just made bloody murdering. Your faces are on each police patrol, around the city activated plan of interception. And you... even not wearing other clothes, sit all four in the same car, on which you arrived to make the attack, keeping own passports with you and drive... no, not to Petrovskiy market area, where huge Central Asian migrants getto, where you can just lost for authorities. You drive to Ukraine - through huge Fridays's evening traffic jams on the exits from Moscow, you drive through all these checkpoints, police, SOBR, which already hunting for you, through Rosgvardiya posts on the roads in rears of Russian troops in Bryansk oblast, through deployments of troops, through zero-lline positions, minefields, drones in the air - so even is Ukrainian side "prepared a window", what other Russian forces would be doing?
Yup, going into effectivelly a warzone border makes zero sense. There were example at exactly start of the war (1-2 weeks) when traffickers in Belarus/Ukraine/Poland used this scheme to smuggle people from BEL, into Ukraine and further by open border into Union, but that way was accidental and closed as soon as situation cleared and border fortified.
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1 hour ago, Haiduk said:
I suppose it was not ISIS, but Kremlin work at all. For ISIS, more logically would be to make terroristic attack as revenge for Gaza or something else, but not against country, withstanding with West - their main enemy. There was claims about "attack on Christian gathering", but who knows, how much Muslims, except Christians or atheists were killed in this attack
IS does not like to cooperate with Hamas (nor with other groups on that matter,although they did some limited contacts and definitelly copied themselves), regard them impure sunni, basically Tehran puppets -which isn't exactly untrue. Theory of Hamas being Iranian asset is gaining ground in wide islamic world, so IS has nothing to do with Gaza; especially Khorasan branch. In their views, such thing as Gaza or Palestinian nation does not exist.
Also these kind of radical groups are by default builded in contre to all normal geopolitics. Russia, USA, Israel, they don't care. It's their main virtue in the eyes of islamist edgy teenagers around the world. All other groups sonner or later become somebody's proxies.
1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:In either situation it's not hard to see ISIS (ISIS-K) being involved as both are Islamic based societies with longstanding cultural and political grievances against Moscow.
Either scenario is very bad for Putin's regime, but the Tajik one is worse IMHO because it's newer and comes in addition to traditional problems from the Caucuses. To the degree this is being made worse by the Ukraine war is unknown, but there is evidence that this is related. At least indirectly.'
Whatever the case is, this is not good for Putin at all.
It's worth to note, since topic was not touched here, that supposed attackers were intercepted on the road in Bryansk...leading to Belarus actually, not Ukraine. I can fully imagine them trying to shelter there for some time (or already having fixed contacts) and then possibly trying to cross into Europe disguised as poor refugees.
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59 minutes ago, FancyCat said:
I went and looked up some of the place names of the location, they all resemble government offices of quite mundane nature.
Perhaps Nexta fooked again then. Broke own rules of not posting those populists, heh.
And we have official version with Chief himself: at the Ukrainian border "window" was opened to harbour terrorist.
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46 minutes ago, FancyCat said:
And so it begins.
If they indeed captured all of them alive (it would be very rare in this kind of events) it can become very ugly from political side.
Btw.:
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15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
That said, ISIL is very likely going to wind up alienated by all great powers as simply too unstable - this is not the first time this has come up. The US spent a decade actively hunting ISIL down all over the MENA and any drug deals with them are pure political poison. Not to mention they are full fledged loons who really can’t be rationally negotiated with. So in this case I suspect it is simply a “duck”. What is odd is why ISIL is picking a fight with Russia now? Russia did side with the Assad regime and is no friend to ISIL or Islamist extremism; however, why wage a high profile attack now? Are they thinking Russia is overextended? Oddly, ISIL could become a point of cooperation between Russian and the US, much like some terror groups did during the Cold War.
This one is really kinda strange.
They for long time ago did flashed their knives at Russia, who isn't considered different than infidels in Europe. Most likely it is unconnected with war in Ukraine as such. But one could wander Russians actually tightened security at least inside their capital...well, apparently not. I wouldn't be surprised if they bribed every policemen on their way like Basaiev did.
Ironic thing is that US send warnings of possible attacks to Kremlin now and even Tehran before ISKP big attack in Kerman months ago, despite being practically in state of proxy war against them. It's humiliation to Putin that Americans know better than him what is happening inside.
Now we will observe how Kremlin will try to spin it.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted · Edited by Beleg85
Not only when larger organziation is at hand; you only need adress of his family. People in most Muslim countries/communities are living communally in very large gatherings, sometimes dozens of relatives, cousins, older ones etc.; it is their families that gives them strength, socialize them and matter most. There are exceptions, but this is a general weakness known to Russians for centuries.
Way of pacifying Chechens was exactly that; attack and heavily persecute larger family, clan, village. Even brave to the point of suicide Chechen fighters didn't have answer when your 10th relative in a month comes back with broken legs and all fingers cut off, begging to stop fighting. Collective punishment is considered very effective way of subduing unruly muslims in Moscow; burden of taking sure none of your sons/cousins/brothers will do something stupid fall on larger family, so it also takes punishment in case. It's not like they have their individual rights or something, right? It didn't work in Afghanistan due to other issues, but is still basic modus operandi of muscovite services in such cases.
Now we already saw 11 persons arrested, including guy who lend car to assailants, owner of flat they lived in, probably their cousins, stepsisters and neighbours are already being intimidated- for now, mostly verbally. If Kremlin will keep it cool, limit itself to public tortures of assailants and not go into heavy persecutions of entire groups of people, I doubt this entire incident will have long-lasting or profound repercussions. I expect at some point also Kadyrovites to be heavily involved as "good" Russian Muslims, despite Ahmad himself being rather silent lately.