Terror vs error: Finger pointing does not bode well for peace
At least 133 people were killed and scores injured in a terror attack in Moscow late on Friday. Four men opened fire indiscriminately in a concert hall, setting a part of it on fire.
Russian authorities are reported to have arrested the attackers. While an arm of the terrorist group ISIS claimed responsibility for the killings, the Kremlin has reportedly been exploring a Ukraine angle, dropping hints about the complicity of the country it invaded in 2022.
Kyiv has said it had nothing to do with it. That it was just an ISIS hit is granted some credibility by a reported alert issued by the US a fortnight earlier and a long pre-war record of Chechen Islamist rebels striking civilians in Moscow.
If no credible evidence emerges of Ukrainian involvement, then Russia’s finger-pointing would acquire the air of a cynical attempt to make a state adversary’s methods look depraved. Else, it might be a symptom of a common cognitive failure in embattled situations: of seeing self-created phantoms in justification of one’s own violence.
Even milder tilts at windmills have been seen to result in truth becoming a casualty of war. Sadly, in a deeply divided world, none of it bodes well for peace.
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