FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted that officials are concerned about the potential for “some kind of coordinated” terrorist attack in the U.S., possibly reminiscent of the March terrorist attack at the Moscow concert hall at the hands of ISIS-K, which claimed well over 100 lives.
In an interview with NBC News, Wray warned that the threat of terrorism following the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7 is as “high as it has been in some time, especially from lone actors or small groups radicalized at home by the war,” according to the outlet. But now, fears have been elevated, particularly following ISIS-K’s March 22 attack at the Crocus City Hall.
“But he said there are also elevated fears about a coordinated terror attack in a public place, a prospect that for the last decade has been seen by intelligence officials as extremely remote,” NBC News reported.
“We are increasingly concerned [about] the potential for some kind of coordinated attack here in the homeland, which may be not that different from what you saw against the concert hall in Russia a few weeks ago from ISIS-K,” Wray told the outlet.
In March, gunmen opened fire in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk and set the complex on fire, leading to the deaths of at least 143 individuals. Gunshot wounds and smoke inhalation were the main causes of death, according to Russian authorities.
A statement from the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), delivered by Chargé d’Affaires Katherine Brucker, noted the attack was the “deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since the Beslan school siege in 2004.” Brucker cited U.S. information surmising that “ISIS-K probably attacked Russia to demonstrate its ability to extend its reach beyond South Asia and because of Moscow’s relationship with the Taliban and ongoing military intervention against ISIS in Syria.”