The USA warned Russia weeks ago of an attack like the one that actually happened on March 22nd. When it comes to terrorism, secret services treat their findings in a surprisingly collegial manner.
Secret services, as the name suggests, work secretly. They collect information that benefits national security or that is intended to give their governments an information advantage when making policy decisions.
In addition, allies can also be spied on – the US foreign secret service NSA even monitored the cell phone of then Chancellor Angela Merkel for years. One can assume that Washington would have preferred that the matter never come to light.
In other situations, however, secret services share their knowledge. For example, on February 23, 2022, the United States communicated its knowledge to Germany and other European partners that Russia would begin its invasion of Ukraine the following night.
Around last Friday’s attack in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, the much more unusual case occurred that information was shared with a state that is definitely not considered an ally.
What information did the US give to Russia?
On March 7, the US Embassy in Moscow warned its compatriots that “extremists have immediate plans to attack large gatherings of people in Moscow, including concerts.” Mass events should be avoided for 48 hours.
In fact, the suspected Islamists only struck 15 days later – but apart from that, the content of the warning matched the attack in Crocus City Hall that left more than 130 dead.
A few hours after the first emergency calls, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson referred to the March 7 warning.
“The U.S. government also passed this information on to Russian officials, as has long been done under our ‘duty to warn’ policy,” she said. Further details or the source of the intelligence information are not publicly known.
How seriously did Russian authorities take the warning?
Terrorism researcher at Kings’s College in London, Peter Neumann, also believes that it is obviously not serious enough: “This is supported by the fact that Vladimir Putin came out five days ago and publicly rejected this warning as propaganda.”
“He basically said, this is a kind of psychological warfare by the Americans, they want to throw me off course, and he didn’t take it seriously at all,” Neumann said in an interview with the German public radio station Deutschlandfunk.
How natural or unusual is the sharing of information in times of war?
Although the USA is not a warring party in Ukraine, it does view Russia as a threat to external security – after all, ruler Putin regularly openly threatens Washington.
“I assume that the Americans made this warning public because there is probably no longer any cooperation with Russian secret services,” says Michael Götschenberg, security expert at the German public broadcaster association ARD.
“Basically, states always warn each other about impending or planned terrorist attacks via their secret services when they find out about them. This also happened in the past in collaboration with Russian secret services. “But I assume that this cooperation has come to a standstill due to the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine,” Götschenberg told DW.
How close is intelligence cooperation in the area of international terrorism?
Groups like the IS offshoot Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISPK) do not stop at national borders – as the recent attacks in Russia, Iran and Afghanistan prove. In this respect, it is crucial for public safety that its guardians in different countries also work together.
According to Götschenberg’s assessment, this basically works well: “Especially in the area of Western secret services, information is consistently exchanged, tips are passed on and then processed by the respective investigative authorities. It often turns out that clues turn out to be irrelevant. But where there is something to discover, people are investigated and arrested.”
Has it always been like this?
In the publicly available directive on the “duty to warn”, the US secret services refer to a secret service law from 1947 and a decree from President Ronald Reagan from 1981. From the point of view of Michael Götschenberg has gained weight, especially in recent years.
“Basically, you have to say that September 11th played a really big role,” says Götschenberg. “It was said that this must not happen to us again, that important information is not passed on. And that continues to this day.”
How are German secret services reacting to the ISPK?
From the perspective of ARD terrorism expert Götschenberg, the German authorities have done a good job with regard to the ISPK in recent years: “In the past two years, we have repeatedly had to deal with situations where ISPK supporters were suspected of planning attacks to have. We managed to thwart these suspected plans at an early stage.”
In the West German city of Cologne, with over a million inhabitants, suspected ISPK supporters had already spied on the cathedral, which is popular with tourists, and a folk festival as possible targets. And just a week ago, investigators in Gera, central Germany, arrested two men who were said to have planned an attack on the Swedish parliament under the banner of the ISPK.
Terrorism researcher Neumann pointed out on Deutschlandfunk that, according to Europol, the number of attempted attacks had risen sharply since October 7th – the attack on Israel by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas: “Thank God nothing happened, but the attacks are becoming more frequent.” It is “sometimes a question of luck that nothing happens”.
Author: David Ehl