Updated April 11, 2024 at 2:10 p.m.
-Analysis-
BEIRUT — The terror attack on a Moscow concert hall last month killed 145 people and wounded more than 500 in the deadliest assault in Russia in many years, after armed gunmen open fire on concertgoers at the Crocus City Hall on the western outskirts of Moscow.
The aftermath of the March 22 attack raised many questions and fueled various conspiracy theories. Much was made about President Vladimir Putin’s accusation that Ukraine was somehow involved. Yet all objective signs point to the responsibility falling on the regional faction of the Islamic State, ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, the terror network’s affiliate that is active in Afghanistan and the surrounding region of former Soviet republics.
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The militants fled the scene, but the Russian Federal Security Service has since arrested 11 suspects, all but one from Tajikistan. One of the militants was identified as Fereydoun Shamsuddin, a Tajik born in 1998. He told investigators that he “arrived from Turkey on March 4, was recruited via Telegram about a month ago, and was offered an amount of 500,000 rubles (about $5,000) in exchange for carrying out a random killing.”
He said that he and the other militants were heading towards the Ukrainian-Russian border, where someone was waiting for them to help them escape.
Russian President Vladimir Putin viewed his confession as a “proof” that Ukraine was involved in the deadly attack. Just days later, the Russian media started to talk about turning the “special military operation” into a full-flagged war. That was followed, on March 31, with Putin signing a new compulsory conscription decree for 150,000 Russian citizens.
It is clear to most what the attack means for Putin’s war in Ukraine. But there is more that the attack may tell us about the current state of ISIS, both in its targeting Russia — and more generally for the future of a terror organization that a decade ago was wrecking havoc around the world and threatening to take over large swathes of the Middle East.
Russia’s security agencies failure
Since its emergence in 2013, competing intelligence agencies, including Russian and Iranian agencies, have tirelessly worked to infiltrate top ISIS leadership, especially in Syria and Iraq.
Reports that Russian authorities were caught off guard of the last month’s attack are dubious, given that two weeks before the attack the U.S. Embassy in Moscow circulated a March 7 warning to its citizens and to the Russian authorities alike about the possibility of a terrorist attack and the need to “avoid mass gatherings.”
The warning reflected the existence of an effective U.S. infiltration of the ISIS-Khorasan affiliate.
The Russian intelligence’ ignorance of the American warning was reminiscent of Iranian intelligence’s ignorance of another American warning Iran received through secret channels one week before ISIS carried out a terrorist bombing near the grave of Qassem Soleimani in the city of Karaman in southern Iran on January 3. Ninety-four people were killed and 284 wounded in the Iranian attack.
The advance warning in both cases reflected the existence of an effective U.S. infiltration of the ISIS-Khorasan affiliate, and the accuracy of the information provided by American intelligence, whether to its allies or adversaries.
Ironically, the Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami blamed Israel and the U.S. despite the American warning, just as Russian authorities blamed Ukraine and the U.S.
It appears that there is a common culture between the Iranian and Russian sides: escaping responsibility.
Conspiracy theories woven by the media affiliated with either party are meant to serve certain political and strategic goals. It is just as the U.S. did after the September 11, 2001 attack, and Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. American and Western media and social media platforms in general (with some exceptions) turned into war propaganda.
ISIS in Ukraine “for the money”
The potential links with Ukraine are not completely unfounded. Hundreds of former ISIS militants and others with links to al-Qaeda previously fought alongside Ukrainian forces in the first months of the Russia-Ukraine war.
They are mercenary fighters with extensive experience in combat. They were not like thousands of foreign volunteers from all over the world and from diverse and contradictory ideological backgrounds who responded to a call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help his country against the Russian invasion.
But this is in now way evidence of a real link between the Ukrainian government and ISIS.
Fundamentalist Islamists’ hatred of Russia goes back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan
Those former militants were not fighting to save Ukraine. They were doing it for the money. Their recruitment is also a political burden and a security risk for Ukraine itself, given that Russia managed to recruit some of them as spies and to carry out assassinations.
Decentralization, fertile ground in Russia
After its defeat in Syria and Iraq and the failure to build a central state, ISIS began to shift to a much more decentralized approach. And Russia’s zone of influence was fertile territory for both recruits and actions.
Fundamentalist Islamists’ hatred of Russia goes back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan that began in 1979, through the Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999, all the way to the Russian intervention on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in 2015.
Another recent cause was Russia’s attack on ISIS interests in Africa and the disruption of the group’s financing sources through Islamic organizations that are intensely active and gradually occupying territories in countries such as Mali, Somalia, and Mozambique.
ISIS and Russia also are facing off in the Sudan civil war, where the Sudanese government’s armed forces enjoy support and training from Ukraine, while the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) enjoy Russian support through the Wagner Group. But what is striking here is the participation of ISIS in this war against RSF, with links to areas controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum.
Puppets of ISIS
ISIS thrives in economically and socially afflicted areas, and we’re seeing that especially in Central Asia and Africa, which makes them ideal for both recruitment and upending security. The terror organization is attentive to providing better living conditions to recruits, especially for migrant workers who are exposed to harsh social and housing conditions, and meager work prospects.
Prime recruit candidates are individuals subjected to social isolation.
ISIS identifies prime recruit candidates as individuals subjected to social isolation, exploiting the psychological factor and feelings of hatred. This is in addition to the ideological and religious factors that are closely linked to the economic and social conditions of the entire population. Religious extremism multiplies and fundamentalist identities are strengthened in areas where spaces for culture, arts, public education, and basic social services are diminished.
The expansion of armed and bloody conflicts around the world constitutes the actual fertile ground for ISIS and other fundamentalist religious movements, whether Islamic or otherwise. It makes more sense to consider the warring countries as puppets of ISIS, and not the other way around.
For ISIS can invest in conflicts to earn money on the one hand and expand the scope of its operations on the other hand — and it has nothing to lose. It also doesn’t care about criticism it might hear in the Western media — or the Russian media either..
