Already, and this is the daily.
This is the daily, This is the daily. OAHs, Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday, the twenty seventh of March.
I'm Sam, I'm Billy.
Russia has just experienced its deadliest domestic terror attack in twenty years in Moscow. On Friday, four gunmen stormed a concert hall and killed at least one hundred and thirty seven people, with another one hundred and forty injured. Now, as the four gunmen faced trial, questions are being asked about the failure of Russian intelligence to foreshadow this attack. This is all despite some very explicit warnings from the
US intelligence services only a few weeks ago. We're going to explain what happened, what the world knew, and how Russia is responding all in today's They Dive. But first, Billy, what is making headlines.
Legislation to jail immigration detainees who don't cooperate with the deportation process is expected to pass the Senate today. Labour introduced its proposed amendment to the Migration Act in Parliament yesterday with the support of the Coalition. It means non citizens will be required to comply with efforts to ensure their prompt and lawful removal from Australia, otherwise they will
face lengthy prison sentences and large fines. It comes amid debate in the High Court over whether the government can lawfully force asylum seekers to leave the country even if they face persecution in their home country.
Melbourne's crownd casino will be allowed to keep its license after a Victorian inquiry and Royal Commission had threatened to ban its gambling operation. A twenty twenty one investigation found Crown had been involved in illegal activity, including tax avoidance and money laundering. The state's Gambling and Casino Commission gave Crown two years to quote address the failure it had identified.
The Commission says it's now satisfied that the casino has reformed its operations, ruling Crown can keep its casino license.
The New Zealand government has raised concerns with the Chinese government over foreign cyber interference. New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters said officials have spoken to the Chinese ambassadors to address these concerns, which he described as unacceptable. It follows action against alleged Chinese cyber activity by UK and US authorities this week.
And today's good news. Scientists at the Australian National University in Canberra have discovered what causes ciiasis. Ciriasis is a skin disease that causes inflammation and skin irritation, which can also lead to arthritis, joint pain and swelling. A and U researchers have now found that a mutation in genes considered quote gatekeepers of the immune system, is the reason people get ciiasis. The breakthrough paves the way for new treatments, earlier diagnosis, and a potential future cure.
Okay, Sam, so let's start by you just explaining what exactly happened in Moscow on Friday.
Yeah. So we go back to Friday night for this attack in Moscow, and Moscow is the capital of Russia. About six thousand people were attending a concert at a hall for the Russian rock band Picnic. They play kind of traditional Russian rock. They're very popular, and just before the concert began, at least four gunmen walked into the entry hall carrying semi automatic weapons and wearing camouflage gear
and they began to shoot indiscriminately. Now, a lot of this attack is captured on video footage filmed by the terrorists and they posted it straight away on social media, and it is horrific footage of people being shot at point blank range. Then the terrorists start pouring a flammable liquid on the floor and light the building on fire. Now, talk emergency services about fifteen minutes to arrive the scene, and I want to come back later to why that
is significant. But in that time the fire had totally engulfed the hall that caused the roof to collapse. The four men escaped, leaving one hundred and thirty seven dead and at least one hundred and forty injured, and that death toll is still expected to grow as emergency services work through the building that is now rubble.
And you said that the terrorists got away, but they were captured soon.
After, right, Yeah. So on Saturday morning local time, Russian authorities said that they'd arrested eleven people in relation to the attack, and that does include the four gunmen that we can see in the video footage. Now, according to the Russian government, they were taken into custody in a region in the southwest of the country near the Ukrainian border. That's a few hours drive from the concert hall, and
according to Russia, they were getting ready to escape into Ukraine. Now, I do just want to mention here that it is incredibly hard for international media to independently verify the reports and statements that we get from the Russian government. But there's been some really amazing journalism I've been reading over the last couple of days by those trying to verify these facts for themselves. And an example is the New
York Times. They looked at the video footage and then they looked at the profiles of those men who have been arrested, and they've concluded with relative certainty that they are indeed the same people.
And so you've been calling it a terrorist attack. From what I understand, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for it.
Yeah, so the men were arrested on Saturday morning. A couple of hours after that, Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack, and they released their own photo of the four masked gunmen. And the Islamic State is a group Australia lists as a terrorist organization, and Islamic State has a deep seated historical hatred towards Russia. Most recently Russia's been involved in a number of military campaigns against the
Islamic State. I mean the big one is Syria's civil war in twenty fifteen, and Islamic State since then has vowed vengeance against Russia for its attack in that region. Now as to the specific branch of ISIS that is responsible for the attack, because there's lots of different branches. It's based on where they are, they're particular ideologies. It's believed in Afghanistan based branch called isis K is responsible.
In terms of getting more specific of who these men actually are, where exactly they came from, it is still an evolving situation, but I do just want to really emphasize that. I think often we forget that there are deep divisions within the world of Islamic terror organizations. We need to go one step deeper when reporting this kind of stuff. And it's not surprising that a friend of Syria, as Russia is, is an enemy of ISIS. And it's just the same way that ISIS and the Taliban attempts
to destroy each other. They come from different sides of the political and ideological divide.
So the Islamic State has come out and claimed responsibility for this attack. What has the Russian government said in response?
Well, firstly, it took Vladimir Putin, who's the Russian president, almost a full day to comment publicly on the attack, and that's a relatively delayed response for a leader after such a severe attack.
Yeah, in Australia and other countries.
We'd hear from them in the hours following yea. And then when he did speak publicly, he delivered a five minute speech that was televised to Russia that didn't include a comment on Islamic State taking responsibility. Interesting why, Well, he believes that Ukraine could partly be to blame for this. Putin highlighted the fact that the men were caught fleeing in the direction of Ukraine, and he kind of was suggesting that Ukraine had a direct role in the attack.
And then it was only yesterday in another televised speech that Putin acknowledged that what he described as radical Islamists were responsible for the attack. But even then, when he acknowledged that there was this link that Islamic State themselves have identified, he linked it further to what he described as the neo Nazi Kiv regime. And that's obviously a reference to Ukraine. Now, Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelenski has denied
any Ukrainian responsibility for the terror attack. In response to the accusations, Zelensky accused Pudin of trying to shift the blame to someone else.
So what you're suggesting is that Russia is trying to make this terrorist attack about Ukraine, who they have invaded and they are in a war against, instead of Islamic State, who has claimed responsibility.
Yeah, and to really understand this, you have to zoom out and look at the big narratives in Russia and the big narratives that Vladimir Putin pushes forward through state run media to the Russian people, and that story is that Russia have two clear enemies at the moment, and that is Ukraine and the West, and Islamic State doesn't
really fit into that framework. But you also have to understand that a lot of Putent support in Russia comes from this perception of Putin as a strong man, as somebody who can guarantee the security and safety of Russian citizens inside Russia. So the idea that there's a terrorist attack inside Russia really doesn't help that perception of Puden, especially just after an election.
Now, I want to move to something that I find really interesting about this terrorist attack, and that's that US intelligence actually warned that a terrorist attack in Russia was imminent earlier this month.
This is remarkable and it's incredible to see how close to the attack these warnings were issued. So earlier this month, the US Embassy in Moscow issued an alert to all American citizens in the city, and they basically warned them to avoid large events, including concerts. They went that specific
for at least two days. Now, that warning was about two weeks before the concert hall attack occurred last Friday night, but intelligence officials have confirmed to The New York Times that the warning issued by US intelligence was directly related to Friday's attack. So they were two weeks off with the timing, but they were clearly absolutely right that a terror attack was imminent.
That'sistounding how specific they went that. They literally said, a terrorist attack will happen in a concert.
Yeah, and Russia didn't really listen to it. I mean, it was delivered to Russia, but they didn't really take it on board. A couple of days before the attack, so like almost a week ago now, Vladimir Putin was reported to have dismissed the warning in a speech and
he called it blackmail. And I think one thing to look at to really demonstrate just how underprepared Russia was for this attack despite the warnings from other security agencies, was how little security there was at the concert hall and how long it took emergency services to arrive at the scene. I mean, think of you know, you and I went to Taylor Swift together, for example. The amount of security in Australia and the amount of police and
emergency services present, it's hard to deny. And so the fact that it took fifteen minutes for emergency services to arrive and four men could enter the building with semi automatic weapons really gives you a sense of how safe and how low the risk was in the eyes of Russian authorities.
Wow, it's so astounding. Can you explain intelligence? I feel like it's a word we hear a lot about, but it's not really something that I've ever heard explained. Can you explain how the US have gone about getting this information?
I think when you hear the word intelligence, just think of it as information. It's government code for information, and it can be collected covertly, so in secret, and it can be restricted to just a few people or given to a whole department, or indeed, in this case, it is given out publicly. Now, intelligence is what helps governments and their agencies understand if there are any threats to
their nation or to their people in other nations. And it can be you know, you could accidentally stumble across details of a potential attack in Russia when US officials were looking at information about a potential attack in America. So it's not always found on purpose, but there is this culture of sharing information amongst intelligence agencies, and it does seem like that's what the US was hoping to happen here, and.
So Russia must have its own intelligence. But I presume their intelligence, like we've gone over, didn't pick up anything because they didn't believe that a terrorist attack was imminent.
Look, intelligence operations in even the most transparent of countries are hard to get information out of, so our hopes of really understanding how Russian intelligence works are limited here. But many international experts are suggesting that it's the fact that Russian intelligence bodies, and the one that sticks out is its national security agency called the FSB, and Vladimir
Putin was actually once the head of the FSB. Have been so focused on limiting political opposition to Putin inside Russia as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine, that they fell asleep at the wheel here and they weren't noticing the rise of an Islamist terror threat to the country.
So what happens now.
Well, the four men at Juda face trial in May, and they each face a maximum sentence of life in prison under the current terror charges. There's been renewed calls across Russia over the last couple of days for the death penalty to be brought back. And we got a look at the four men when they appeared in court earlier this week, and they all weren't in good shape. They all looked like they'd been beaten, with black eyes and swollen faces.
I think one man was even in a wheelchair.
Yeah, yeah, and one had a bandage over one of their ears. Now, this is not something that Russian authorities wanted to hide. They literally broadcast photos and videos of the detainees around the world and via social media, so it's fair to say that the images were a clear warning to others connected to the group not to think about further attacks, so where are we at well for now.
At the same time, as more evidence comes out confirming Islamic state's involvement, Russia continues to shift the blame to Ukraine.
And in the days since the attacks, some European countries, including France, has raised its national security alert to the highest level, saying there could be an attack emergency. So it's a story. We will continue to keep an eye on. Sam. Thank you so much for taking us through it. Thanks Billy, and thank you so much for listening to The Daily Odds.
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My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Adunda Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily Ods acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
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