Soon after Friday’s terrorist attack killed at least 137 people in Moscow, Russian pundits and politicians insinuated that the attackers had links to Ukraine. This came as little surprise. It has become standard for the Kremlin to blame Ukraine for Russia’s internal blunders and accuse it of making common cause with nefarious forces.

Friday’s terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow killed more than 100 people in a brutal crime against humanity. Many key facts are still unclear, and rest assured they will become only less clear as the Kremlin works to exploit the crisis domestically and abroad.

Coming shortly after his latest sham election, the attack gave dictator Vladimir Putin a rallying cry one day after the Kremlin declared for the first time that Russia is in a “state of war” in Ukraine.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow warned Americans to avoid going to concerts in Moscow just weeks before gunmen launched an attack at a concert venue on Friday.

Several gunmen opened fire at Crocus City Hall, a large music venue in the Moscow area, leaving an unknown number of victims injured. Many details about the shooting, including who the suspected shooters are and what their motive may have been, remained unclear as responders were still at the scene.

Russia’s FSB security service said Thursday it had killed Islamic State militants who were planning a “terrorist attack” on a Moscow synagogue, Russian state news agencies reported.

The FSB said an ISIS cell based in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, had been planning to shoot Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in the capital.

“While being arrested, the terrorists put up armed resistance to the Russian FSB officers, and as a result were neutralized by return fire,” the state-owned TASS news agency quoted the security service as saying in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they attacked the "spy headquarters" of Israel in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, state media reported late on Monday, while the elite force said they also struck in Syria against the Islamic State.

The strikes come amid concerns about the escalation of a conflict that has spread through the Middle East since the war between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas began on Oct. 7, with Iran's allies also entering the fray from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for two explosions in Iran that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in Iraq in 2020 by a U.S. drone.

In a statement posted on its affiliate Telegram channels, the militant Sunni Muslim group said two IS members had detonated their explosive belts in the crowd which had gathered at the cemetery in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman on Wednesday for the anniversary of Soleimani's death.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally in a former stronghold of militants in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 44 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack that a senior leader said was meant to weaken Pakistani Islamists.

The U.S. military has confirmed to Newsweek that it has conducted a raid in northeast Syria near front lines held by the country's government and Russia.

"Last night, CENTCOM forces conducted a raid in northeast Syria targeting a senior ISIS official," U.S. Central Command spokesperson Army Colonel Joe Buccino said in a statement shared with Newsweek. "We will release more information once we are able to confirm operational details."

OUAGADOUGOU, June 13 (Reuters) - Armed men killed at least 100 civilians in a rural district of northern Burkina Faso over the weekend, a local and a security source said on Monday.

The attackers struck on Saturday night in Seytenga commune, part of Seno province, which lies in borderlands where militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are waging an insurgency.

One security source told Reuters at least 100 people were killed.

“The leader of the jihadist group Islamic State died in a U.S. special forces raid in northern Syria on Thursday when he detonated a bomb that killed him and family members… Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby earlier described Thursday's raid as a successful counter-terrorism mission, saying there were no U.S. casualties. Syrian rescue workers said at least 13 people including six children and four women were killed by clashes and explosions that erupted after the raid began.” Reuters