Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Putin is as deluded about the Islamist threat as the West

Putin lights candles for the victims of the Crocus City Hall terror attack (Credit: Getty images)

From the outset it was obvious to seasoned observers who massacred more than 130 Russians at a concert hall Moscow on Friday evening. It wasn’t, as some in the Kremlin claimed, Ukraine. What would they stand to gain from such indiscriminate slaughter?

The people who opened fire in the Crocus City Hall cleaved to the same ideology as those who have this century murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children in New York, Bali, Madrid, London, Brussels, Paris, Manchester and Nice. According to reports, the group that carried out the Moscow attack is known as Islamic State Khorasan (Isis-K) and it has a reputation for ‘extreme brutality’.

Despite the fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, Putin is still trying to implicate Ukraine

What Islamist group doesn’t have such a reputation? Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Congo’s Allied Democratic Forces all get a kick out of killing without mercy.

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