West fears terrorist attacks during Paris Olympics

Western officials fear terrorist attacks during the Olympic Games to be held in Paris from July 26 to August 11 because of the events at the Crocus City Hall, The New York Times reported, citing sources.

"I worry about the Paris Olympics. They would be a premium terrorist target," Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former top UN counterterrorism official who is now a senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, said. According to the newspaper, other American and European experts on terrorist threats share this view.

The New York Times quoted an unnamed intelligence official from one of the Western countries as saying that the main factors that could lead to a new terrorist attack are the existence of Islamic State (IS, outlawed in Russia) sleeper cells in Europe, the ongoing conflict in Gaza, and the alleged support of militants by Russian-speaking citizens.

Earlier, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said that the country's authorities had raised the level of the terrorist threat in the country to the highest after the meeting of the National Defense Council, organized at the Elysee Palace in connection with the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall.

On the evening of March 22, a terrorist attack targeted the Crocus City Hall music venue in the city of Krasnogorsk near Moscow. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the death toll is 137, but may rise. According to the Moscow Region Health Ministry, 182 people were injured. Eleven suspects involved in the terrorist attack have been apprehended, including four hitmen who were trying to make off heading towards the Ukrainian border. President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that, according to preliminary information, the Ukrainian side had prepared ‘a gap’ in the border for the terrorists to cross it. He promised to identify and punish all those behind the attack on the Crocus City Hall and declared March 24 a day of national mourning.