So actually here’s what I was thinking: 

ThenAzurei are physically the ones doing the attacking. But they’ve been put up to it by a bigger clandestine faction of government. The fact that Azurei was involved will be readily apparent to Ridahne and likely to others that were at the scene, and they become the obvious bad guys. But our characters discover it’s more than that. There’s something bigger happening.

Which means that if they get taken in, there are two options:

1: the low level government that gets hold of them does not know about the conspiracy and pegs them with the incident out of genuine belief that hey did it.

2: they know. And they’re using our three as pawns to throw under the bus as if to prove to the public that something is being done, when really they’re keeping people from the truth.