Big terrorist assault unfolding in Moscow as armed gunman storm a concert corridor, waste spectators

hi there everyone it is 4:00 here in New York I'm Alicia Menendez in today for Nicole Wallace we come on the air this afternoon in the midst of breaking news still developing at this hour a truly chilling situation unfolding right now in Moscow early reports indicate there was a terror attack across multiple.

Venues in the Russian Capital including a shopping mall and a concert venue Russian media reporting armed gunmen in combat fatigues stormed a city building while a concert was taking place before opening fire on Spectators Russia's State News agencies say at least 40 people are dead and 100 more are injured the roof of the concert hall which is.

Engulfed in flames is in danger of collapse just two weeks ago the US Embassy in Russia sent out a bulletin warning that extremists in Russia had imminent plans to Target large gatherings in Moscow including concerts let's bring in former CIA director and NBC News senior National Security analyst John Bren and uh director.

Brennan thank you so much for being with us this is of course a developing situation can you give our audience just an understanding of the climate in Russia right now well uh unfortunately Moscow is not a um unknown to uh terrorist events uh over the course of the past number of years past couple decades um Moscow has.

Been the scene of some terrorist attacks perpetrated by a variety of groups uh and uh Moscow was a a very highly Urban environment uh people at the theater and so this was taking place uh at a large uh Gathering uh which is why I think the early reports are the high number of of dead and wounded it appears as though if this was some type of coordinate attack.

It was carried out by a group that clearly had planned this in advance um and the fact that the US Embassy issued this warning previously about extremists having plans to carry out attacks I think it demonstrates that there it was concern earlier that some groups might be carrying out these attacks now uh I think it's quite early to speculate who.

Might be responsible for this but uh the Russians uh have had a past of dealing rather brutally uh with uh terrorists who engage in these types of attacks uh when there were hot large number of hostages taken previously and whether it be at schools or at theater the ballet uh the Russian have dealt rather severely uh and uh the response.

Frequently has led to a large number of Civilian casualties and casualties of hostages that were taken by by terrorist groups so I'm sure that there is a uh whole U effort on the part of the Russian security uh services and forces to uh uh uh secure these areas uh isolate the terrorists and then to deal with them I think again rather uh.

Directly and uh if not brutally director Brennan to talk about that bulletin from the US Embassy in Russia warning that extremists in Russia had imminent plans to Target large Gatherings released just two weeks ago can you pull back the curtain for us and give us a sense of the type of traffic the type of noise that leads to that type of bulletin.

Being issued well it refers uh to extremists which could refer to any number of of groups but uh when something like this is issued is usually as the result of some reliable information that has come in either from Human sources or from signals intelligence from intercepted Communications and probably not just a.

Single Source uh but uh something that uh has been corroborated uh which is why they went out with that public warning uh singling out extremists uh being prepared to carry out these attacks so this is something that the the United States government the bid Administration the state department would have been working with the intellig.

Community uh because they determined that the information or intelligence was of sufficient uh specificity as well as specific RI reliability that uh LED them to uh issue that warning uh also it's been my experience that uh if the US intelligence had information like this about terrorist attacks taking place in Moscow Russia it would have been shared.

To some degree with Russian authorities as well despite the fact that we are at odds with Russia over any a variety of issues uh if there was some type of terrorist uh threat information uh that we believe that was important to get to the Russian authorities we would have done that director Brennan that is retroactive that is the intelligence.

That would have led to that bulletin can you talk me through what American intelligence is doing now well they're clearly uh going to be uh combing any uh intelligence that they might be obtaining now um and uh trying to uh find out exactly uh again who was responsible for this again there are a variety of technical means of human.

Means um I know that the uh president of Ukraine president zalinsky has come out to avowing any type of formal Ukrainian involvement I certainly do not believe that president zalinski and the ukrainians uh Ukrainian government would have been behind something like this that very specifically targeted innocent civilians uh so I'm sure that the uh us.

Intelligence Community is is working with some other intelligence communities to try to find out what's going on the concern they would have is that this might be part of not just a coordinated effort that took place uh just now but also whether or not this might be a uh part of a plan of a series of attacks and some other attacks might be uh.

Coming forward so I think us intelligence is most interested in finding out and uncovering whether or not there are some other attacks that are currently planned that if information is obtained on them we we might be able to stop them director Brennan understanding that this is a developing and fluid situation.

Understanding we do not want to be speculative but by by way of understanding sort of the the full picture here can you talk us through the groups within Russia that could just simply pull off an attack of this scale well um when the Russians were involved in a lot of the fighting in the caucuses in Chia and Southern and other.

Areas there were a number of groups that uh grew out of that conflict and carried the fight then to the streets of Moscow uh it is possible uh that with uh what's the fighting that's going on in Ukraine now there could be individuals who have uh decided to take uh matters upon themselves and to carry it out but clearly there's a fair amount of.

Dissension within Russia itself uh there are Russians who are launching ATT ATT s in the western part of of Russia uh near the border with Ukraine against Russian targets and Russian authorities so uh there could be some domestic groups uh that could have been motivated because they are disgusted with what the Putin regime continues to do uh inside of.

Ukraine there could be Russians who are upset at the continued suppression that the Russian regime uh is engaged in against domestic opponents we had the recent death of Alexi Nal uh so there are a variety of of groups and individuals who have uh their own reasons and motivations why they might decide to carry out something like this.

It's quite unfortunate that it was directed against a number of of civilians and the number of dead and injured now is uh so is growing Dr Brennan I'm going to ask you to stay with us I want to bring in NBC News foreign correspondent Matt Bradley Matt this is of course a developing situation what can you tell us what is the.

Latest well it sounds like from the task news agency that at least 40 people were killed and at least 100 people were injured I wouldn't be surprised if that number continues to go up as the evening wears on and rescue efforts continue we don't know a whole lot about this situation and as you were just talking about the big question is here who.

Perpetrated this was it a terrorist group was it ukrainians was it dissidents who were opposed to Vladimir Putin who was just reelected in elections that were widely considered to be manipulated in so there are all sorts of people who could be behind this including the chin who back 22 years ago they launched a.

Similar sort of attack where they took hostages uh on a theater also in Moscow that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people or more than a hundred people nearly 200 people including quite a few children this was a big disaster and one that is going to be in the minds of a lot of mos moscovites and Russians as they think about this situation they're.

Going to be obviously looking for some sort of political uh motiv behind this and we haven't yet heard somebody coming out and claiming responsibility we don't even know if the somewhere between two to five gunmen who again entered there wearing camouflage it looks like they had bombs that they deployed as well that's what started I think that fire.

That you're seeing on your screen or we can we can assume that there was some sort of incendiary device because now that theater is Burning uh this is a situation that is definitely going to uh really start what is probably going to be some sort of massive sweeping Crackdown in Russia a country that we've already seen does not Brook dissent not.

Against Vladimir Putin nor against the war in Ukraine so this is you know probably going to start a new phase in what we've been seeing in the political Crackdown throughout the country uh and we can probably expect that that will start very very soon because we've already seen a lot of um of a lack of sympathy for political dissonance uh in.

Moscow and in Russia for

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