//The Wire Weekly Rollup//March 24-30, 2024//

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-International Events-

France: Authorities have increased the terror alert to its maximum level following the continual assessment of an increased likelihood of terrorism. Though authorities have not revealed any specific threat (beyond the violent attacks France experiences on a daily basis), the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games have been closed to tourists. Event officials are also considering closing the opening ceremonies altogether due to the security threats.

Russia: Details continue to emerge following the Crocus City Hall music venue shooting last week. All four shooters have been arrested, along with a handful of other individuals accused of complicity in the attack. 

-HomeFront-

Maryland: The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after the M/V DALI collided with a support pylon after an unknown mechanical issue caused the vessel to deviate from her course. Details regarding the specifics of the incident have largely not been made public due to the ongoing investigation. The M/V DALI remains impaled on the bridge debris, which has caused Baltimore Harbor to be cut off from the outside world, stranding four major Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships in the harbor for the foreseeable future. Initial estimates have indicated that the bridge will take approximately 10 years to rebuild, despite only taking 5 years to build originally in 1972.

Texas: Outrage continues following the revelation of clauses within the latest trillion dollar omnibus spending bill, which have mandated the federal tracking of all beef cattle in the United States.

New York: City officials have announced the implementation of metal detectors in the subway system. These detectors will augment the existing military checkpoints currently in place throughout the subway system, and will be installed over the next few weeks.

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Analyst Comments: To the unknowing citizen, the excuse of ISIS-K being responsible for the Moscow attack may seem as plausible as any other theory. However, those who have field experience combatting ISIS-K may assess that the chance that ISIS-K was responsible for this attack is nearly zero. The following are a few indicators that suggest the official story, spread throughout western Europe, the United States, and even Russia, is a lie.

At this point, most media outlets claim that ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also blamed “radical Islamists” for the attack, though not going so far as to name a specific group. The Khorasan-derived ISIS offshoot has largely declined over the past few years for many reasons. Whereas the traditional Islamic State organization has roots in Iraq and Syria, the Khorasan splinter group known as ISIS-K is a completely different organization in practice. Largely being confined to the far-reaches of eastern Afghanistan as well as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, as recently as 2019 ISIS-K was on its way out as an organization. Numbering only a few hundred members, and taking refuge in the Tora Bora mountains (of Bin Laden fame), ISIS-K had lost so much influence that even attacks in Jalalabad were very rare. Taliban forces were at war with ISIS-K deep in the mountains, and on many occasions the United States undertook operations to target ISIS-K with the assumption that the Taliban would then move in and occupy the terrain. This was quietly the de facto policy for many years. In fact, diplomatic relations soured at the 2019 peace negotiations in Doha in response to a few high-profile instances where conventional American forces killed a few relatives of senior Taliban leadership, rather than ISIS-K. As such, the ability for ISIS-K to conduct operations outside of Afghanistan is extremely remote, especially considering that the