Moscow concert hall attack: Why is ISIL targeting Russia?  | ISIL/ISIS News

More than 133 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a brazen attack on concertgoers at Moscow’s Krokus Town Hall before a performance by a Soviet-era rock band on Friday.

According to reports, attackers wearing camouflage uniforms opened fire and threw explosive devices into the concert venue. After the fatal attack, the concert venue was in flames and the roof collapsed.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reported earlier on Saturday that 11 people had been detained, including four who were directly involved in the armed attack.

According to Reuters, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State – also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province ISKP (ISIS-K) – has claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. officials have confirmed the authenticity of the claim.

Here’s what we know about the group and their possible motivations for launching the Moscow attack.

Islamic State Afghanistan branch

The group remains one of the most active affiliates of the Islamic State, which takes its name from an ancient caliphate in the region that once encompassed Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan.

The group emerged from eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and is composed of defected fighters from the Pakistani Taliban and local fighters who have pledged allegiance to the late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The group has since gained notoriety for its brutality.

Military analyst and former Turkish army colonel Murat Aslan said the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan is known for its “radical and hard-line approach.”

“I think their ideology inspired their choice of targets. First, Russia is in Syria and fighting ISIS [ISIL] Just like America. This means they consider these countries to be hostile,” Aslan told Al Jazeera.

“They are now in Moscow. Previously they were in Iran and we will see more attacks, maybe in other capitals,” he added.

Although the group’s membership in Afghanistan is said to have declined since its peak around 2018, its militants still pose one of the biggest threats to the Taliban’s authority in Afghanistan.

Previous attacks by the group

ISKP militants claimed responsibility for a 2021 attack outside Kabul airport that killed at least 175 civilians, killed 13 U.S. soldiers and injured dozens more.

The group was previously blamed for a bloody attack on a Kabul maternity ward in May 2020 that killed 24 people, including women and babies. In November of the same year, the organization launched an attack on Kabul University, killing at least 22 teachers and students.

In September 2022, the group was responsible for a fatal suicide bombing at the Russian Embassy in Kabul.

Last year, Iran blamed the group for two attacks on Shah Cheragh, a major holy site in southern Shiraz, that killed at least 14 people and injured more than 40 others.

The United States claimed communications it intercepted confirmed the group was preparing to launch an attack before a coordinated suicide bombing killed nearly 100 people in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman in January. ISKP claimed responsibility for the Kerman attack.

Why did ISIL attack Russia?

Defense and security analysts say the group has targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years with its propaganda over Russia’s alleged oppression of Muslims.

Amira Jadoon, an assistant professor at Clemson University in South Carolina and co-author of “Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Strategic Alliances and Competition,” said Russia is considered an “Islamic State” Moscow, ISKP’s main opponent, has become the focus of ISKP’s “extensive actions”. propaganda war”.

“Russia joins global fight against ISIS [ISIL] “Russia and its affiliates, particularly through its military operations in Syria and its efforts to establish ties with ISIS-K’s rivals, the Afghan Taliban, mark Russia as a major contributor to ISIS/ISIS-K,” Jadoun told Al Jazeera. opponent.”

Jadoun said that if the Moscow attack was “certainly” the work of ISKP, the group hopes to win support and advance “the goal of developing a terrorist organization with global influence” by demonstrating its ability to launch attacks within Russian territory. .

“ISK [ISKP] “The Islamic Republic of Iran has always demonstrated its ambition to develop into a powerful regional entity… By directing its aggression against countries such as Iran and Russia, ISK not only confronts regional heavyweights but also emphasizes its role on the global stage,” Jadoun said. political relevance and operational impact.”

Kabir Taneja, a strategic research fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in New Delhi, India, told Al Jazeera that Russia is viewed by the Islamic State and its affiliates as a “crusader force against Muslims.”

“Russia has been a target of ISIS, not just ISKP, from the beginning,” said Taneja, author of “The Danger of ISIS.”

“ISKP is under attack [the] Russian embassy to be in Kabul in 2022, months after Russian security agencies step up crackdown on pro-Islamic State [pro-ISIL] ecosystems in Russia and its border areas, especially in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” he said.

In early March, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it foiled a plan by the Islamic State to attack a Moscow synagogue.

ISIS and Russia have also been enemies on other battlefields, such as Syria, where Moscow’s air power and support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime were crucial to halting gains made by ISIS militants in the early stages of the civil war. Syrian human rights groups and other opposition fronts have also accused Russian troops of committing abuses and atrocities against civilians through bombing campaigns.

Taneja said Moscow’s close ties with Israel are also repugnant to the Islamic State’s ideology.

“So this friction is not new ideologically, but tactically it is,” he told Al Jazeera.

There’s another factor: Armed groups that have largely stayed out of the world’s attention have regrouped into a powerful force after setbacks in Syria and Iran.

“ISKP has grown significantly in strength in Afghanistan…and it’s not just ISKP, ISIS is also seeing this in Syria and Iraq, its original areas of operation. [an] Improvement in operational capabilities,” Taneja said. Today, he added, it is “still powerful ideologically if not politically, tactically or strategically”.

He said this poses a challenge in a distracted world.

“How to deal with this is a big question at a time when great power competition and global geopolitical instability have put counterterrorism on the back burner,” Taneja added.

Abdul Basit, a senior associate fellow at the S. S. S. S. S. International Studies in Singapore, said ISKP social media channels were “jubilant” after the Moscow attack.

“They are celebrating the attack,” Basit told Al Jazeera, adding that supporters were “translating and forwarding statements of responsibility” issued by the Islamic State-linked Amaq news agency.

Bast said the Islamic State’s operational methods include ramping up propaganda ahead of large-scale attacks, which has been reflected in its recent anti-Russian messaging. Basit explained that such attacks “increase the credibility” of armed groups, thus “expanding the scope of their funding, recruitment and propaganda.”

He added that more attacks were likely in Russia and elsewhere, given the key role Islamic State’s Asian recruits, especially Tajiks, played in the group’s seizure of territory in Syria. Buster said they have now returned to Central Asia and their intent to launch an attack is now realized in terms of capabilities.

Previous attacks in Russia

Moscow and other Russian cities have been targets of previous attacks.

In 2002, Chechen militants took more than 900 people hostage at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater, demanding that Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya and end Russia’s war in the region.

Russian special forces stormed the theater, ending a standoff that left 130 people dead, most of them asphyxiated by security forces who used poison gas to render the Chechen militants unconscious.

Russia’s deadliest attack was the 2004 Beslan school siege, carried out by members of a Chechen armed group seeking independence from Russia. The siege left 334 people dead, including 186 children.