The Islamic State is responsible for the attacks in Moscow

U.S. authorities presume that the Islamic State is responsible for the attacks in Moscow.

There is evidence to support that reality, and it does not sound far-fetched to think that the Islamic State would be responsible for the attacks in Moscow.

“The U.S. Embassy in Russia is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to attack large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts, (…) over the next 48 hours,” said a March 7 warning from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

At the beginning of the month, the United States focused its suspicions on the Islamic State in Khorasan province, known as ISIS-K or ISIS-K for short, the group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, which also has a presence in Pakistan and Iran.

This group is the branch with the greatest capacity to commit attacks outside its area of operations, as demonstrated in recent months, raising global alert.

Finally, it was not 48 hours but two weeks, and in this sense, the Islamic State is responsible for the attacks in Moscow.

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The Islamic State is responsible for the attacks in Moscow

This Friday, Islamic State was allegedly responsible for the attacks in Moscow and reappeared on the international stage with a spectacular attack of the kind that led them to spread fear around the world during their peak of activities when they established a caliphate in Syria and Iraq starting in 2014.

Several attackers responding to ISIS stormed a Moscow concert hall, opened fire, killed at least 133 people and then set the venue ablaze.

This week, after his expected victory in an unopposed election, President Vladimir Putin had dismissed warnings coming from the United States that the Islamic State was responsible for the Moscow attacks.

Putin considered the warnings as “blackmail” aimed at “intimidating or destabilizing” Russian society.

However, ISIS-K was already under the radar of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). On March 7 itself, the FSB announced that it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue, and killed terrorists from an Islamic State cell based in Kaluga, in the center of the country, linked to the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State.

This Saturday, ISIS said through its Al-Amaq news agency that it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk, and shared images of the terrorists.

“The attack was conducted by four ISIS fighters, armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs,” the organization claimed on one of its Telegram accounts, adding that the attack was in the context of “war” with “countries fighting Islam.”

Continues to expand around the world

U.S. officials claim that the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State was behind the attack. However, Russia has yet to echo these versions and insists on a Ukrainian connection.

“ISIS-K has been obsessed with Russia for the past two years,” Colin Clarke, an analyst at the Soufan Group, told The New York Times. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood on its hands, a reference to Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria,” he explained.

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In a mapping of Islamic State’s global activity, analyst Aaron Zelin recorded eight attacks in Russia between August 2016 and April 2019, not counting those in the Muslim-majority Caucasian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, the main scene of attacks in recent years.

Another clue, that the Islamic State would be responsible for the Moscow attacks, is the ISIS-K attack on the Russian embassy in Kabul in September 2022, which left eight dead.