The gruesome and brazen attack on a concert hall in Moscow is a reminder that ISIS is not dead—and it is making sure that it is no longer forgotten. We look at what happened and why.
Start with the attack please…
On Friday evening, gunmen stormed the Crocus City hall on the outskirts of Moscow—where 6,000-plus had gathered for a concert by the rock group Picnic. They opened fire at concert goerș—and used some kind of “flammable liquid” to set fire to the arena. The entire attack lasted around 20 minutes. As of now, 137 are dead—and more than 100 are in serious condition.
Here is some of the footage taken by eyewitnesses—collated by The Telegraph.
Content warning: Even though there is no blood, this is still very difficult to watch:
The arrests: The attackers fled the venue in a car but were intercepted 340 km from Moscow. Two were arrested—while the others escaped. As of now, a total of 11 have been detained—including four who were "directly involved.” They appeared at a court—and were arraigned on terrorism charges. All four appear to be from Tajikistan.
Blaming Ukraine: The Russian president delivered a five-minute televised address—over 18 hours after the attack. It did not address the abysmal failure of security—which wasn’t surprising. And it appeared to blame the Ukrainians—which is truly astonishing. He said the four attackers were “moving toward Ukraine” when they were stopped—and that “a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.” Many nationalist commentators and ultraconservative hawks have dutifully echoed his line.
Who is responsible: There is zero evidence of Ukraine involvement. Within hours, the Islamic State made a statement claiming credit for the attacks. The group later shared bloody videos of the attack—which we are not sharing (or linking to).
The attackers are from ISIS, really?
An ISIS attack feels like a bizarre flashback at a time when the world is fixated on Ukraine—and the second Cold War between the US and Russia. But the Islamic State has made something of a comeback over the past year—fulfilling dire warnings of terrorism experts.
First, about that name: A terrorist by any other name is still a terrorist. But this particular bunch has way too many: IS, ISIL, ISIS and Daesh. Apparently, the confusion dates back to the desire of the Western press to simplify the name of The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. That’s what the group called itself back in 2013—when it first gained notoriety for seizing power in Iraq and Syria. The ‘al-Sham’ bit proved to be tricky:
The term has no direct translation in English and refers to Greater Syria, the geographic area in the Middle East that the group desires for its vision of an Islamic state. The English word closest in meaning to “al-Sham” is the dated name for a slightly overlapping geographic area: the Levant, which spans the countries of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey.
Hence, show-off nerds like Barack Obama called the group ISIL—as in Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Others stuck to more familiar geography—i.e Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Then the terrorists themselves confused matters by shortening their name to Islamic State—hello, IS.
Last but not least, Middle East leaders began using the Arabic acronym for the group—Daesh: “The phonetic sound of the acronym is intended to be unpleasant, and the rare use of an acronym in Arabic is meant to attribute disrespect to the group and to ignore the meaning behind its longer name.”
Note: We’re not sure you needed to know any of this, but it was driving us crazy.
A quick timeline of ISIS: looks something like this:
- It was first formed in 2004—from what remained of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
- The group became active and more ambitious after the US retreated from Iraq—around 2011.
- In 2014, ISIS launched an offensive on Mosul and Tikrit. Its leader—Abu Bakr al Baghdadi—announced the birth of a caliphate stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq. That’s when it renamed itself Islamic State.
- At its height, ISIS held about a third of Syria and 40% of Iraq. And it boasted recruits from around the world—and had affiliates in other countries.
- Over the next couple of years, the US launched airstrikes on ISIS—while the organisation developed a blood-soaked reputation for beheadings, torture, mass killings, and more.
- The international effort to dislodge IS eroded its power—and it had lost 95% of its territory by 2017.
- In 2019, its leaders in Syria and Iraq lost their last strongholds—and everyone declared victory.
Say hello to ISIS-K: as in ISIS-Khorasan. Since the disintegration of the 'caliphate’ in the Middle East, ISIS has become a network of affiliates—spread across the world. ISIS-K is the most active. ‘Khorasan’ refers to an ancient caliphate that once encompassed areas of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan.
The group has an estimated 4,000-6,000 fighters from the subcontinent (including India), Iran, Turkey—and from Russia and several Central Asian countries. US intelligence has identified ISIS-K—based in Afghanistan—as the likely perpetrator of the Moscow attack
Key point to note: ISIS-K is fiercely opposed to the Taliban—which it views as a sell-out for negotiating its return to power with the US. It is also a rival of Al Qaeda—and is now far stronger, with more recruits across the world.
Recent history of ISIS-K: Formed in 2015, it waned in influence soon after the Islamic State fell from power in the Middle East. In 2019, 343 attacks were attributed to the group—but that count fell to just 11 in 2020. But those 11 were significant and spectacular events:
In April 2020, there was a deadly attack on a gurdwara in Kabul, followed by a suicide bombing in the maternity ward of a Kabul hospital. There were other attacks in Kabul – at the University, a clinic of the Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Jalalabad prison, a funeral procession of a police officer in Nangarhar.
Since 2021, ISIS-K has once again become hyper-active. It conducted 77 attacks in Afghanistan in just the first four months of 2021. ISIS-K was also behind the horrific attack on Kabul airport in the last days of the US retreat that year—killing 175 civilians and 13 US soldiers.
The most recent attack: Dual suicide bombings that killed 84 people at a state funeral in Iran in January.
But why attack Russia? Why not Europe or the US?
The US intelligence community has warned of ISIS-K attacks with increasing urgency. Just this month, General Michael Kurilla—head of U.S. Central Command—offered this blunt testimony in front of Congress:
“ISIS-K and its allies retain a safe haven in Afghanistan, and they continue to develop their networks in and out of the country,” said Gen Michael Kurilla… “Their goals do not stop there. They have called for attacks globally on anyone not aligned with their extremist ideology, and Taliban efforts to suppress the group have proven insufficient.” The attack in Iran demonstrated the group’s “resiliency and indicates that they retain the capability and will to conduct spectacular external operations.”
Warning ignored: Americans alerted the Kremlin of the risk of an imminent terrorist attack—and issued a public warning:
[T]he US embassy in Russia had said it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” including concerts, and it warned US citizens to avoid such places. US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US government had “shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy.”
But last Tuesday, Putin openly dismissed the warning as “provocative,” saying “these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilise our society.” That’s barely three days before the concert hall attack.
About that beef with Russia: Moscow has an established record of brutal campaigns targeting Muslim populations. There’s the occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the bloody crackdown on Chechnyan separatists at home—and most recently, the campaign against ISIS rebel forces in Syria.
The fact that ISIS-K was gunning for Russia was not a secret—nor is it new. In 2015, a Russian plane carrying 224 people was brought down over the Sinai peninsula—an attack carried out by an Egyptian IS branch. In 2022, ISIS-K bombed the Russian consulate in Afghanistan. And just this month, intelligence agencies claimed to have foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue.
Data point to note: Kremlin is especially loathed by members from Central Asian republics: “More foreign fighters joined Islamic State from the former Soviet republics than any other region.” So it’s not surprising that the four accused are from Tajikistan. Experts accuse Moscow for not taking the threat seriously:
“They have not prioritized the threat from ISIS that includes many Central Asians. Thousands of Central Asians joined the Islamic State, and many returned from Syria and Iraq after the loss of the caliphate. A lot of them rose to very senior positions and had come from either the army, the police or the intelligence services of a number of Central Asian states.”
“The Central Asian element of ISIS had always targeted Russia,” [former CIA officer Douglas] London added. “I don’t think there is shock and surprise in Russian intelligence that there was an issue. It just simply wasn’t sufficiently high on their agenda.”
The bottomline: Experts say the attackers are—very clearly—well-trained terrorists:
If you look at the videos of this attack, the way that they shot, and even the spacing between them when they carry out the attacks, it’s clear they were well trained. It doesn’t seem like these were just local guys who were imbibing ISIS propaganda and decided to do something.
In other words, this isn’t a ragtag attempt to get attention—but a well-planned assault on the heart of the Russian establishment. FYI: In Iran, the target was the funeral of a highly respected Revolutionary Guards general. The real message here: We can get anyone, anywhere. Something to think about since India too is in the ISIS-K’s crosshairs.
Reading list
Vox looks at the attempt within Russia to hang this on Kyiv. Washington Post and BBC News assess the impact on the newly reelected Putin. On ISIS-K and its fixation on Russia, read Al Jazeera, Washington Post and The Conversation.
