Why is the Islamic State group 'fixated' on Russia and what is ISIS-K?

A branch of Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, has claimed responsibility for a deadly terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall.

At least 60 people were killed and 145 wounded when camouflage-clad men armed with automatic weapons opened fire on concertgoers at the Crocus City Hall, about 20 kilometres from the Kremlin.

More specifically, the attack was claimed by ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s Afghan branch.

Here’s what we know about ISIS-K and its motivations for attacking Russia.

What is ISIS-K?

ISIS-K stands for Islamic State Khorasan. Khorasan is an old term for a region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

The branch emerged in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and has a history of attacks inside and outside Afghanistan.

In September 2022, its militants claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul.

Are we sure ISIS-K is responsible?

Not entirely. Islamic State has in the past claimed attacks it had nothing to do with.

However, the group’s claim it is behind the Moscow attack has been backed by US intelligence sources.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency posted a statement on Telegram following the deadly shooting, saying its fighters attacked on the outskirts of Moscow.

The statement said they killed and wounded hundreds, “causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely”.

The US embassy in Russia had warned on March 8 that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow, hours after Russian security services said they had foiled an ISIS branch’s planned shooting at a synagogue.

What could ISIS-K’s motive for the Russian attack be?

Experts say ISIS-K has opposed Russian President Vladimir Putin for years.

“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticising Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke, with the Soufan Center, an independent foreign policy research centre.

Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Wilson Center said ISIS-K “sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims”.

He added that the group also counted as members a number of Central Asian militants who had their own grievances with Moscow.

Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war when he intervened in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and Islamic State.

The war began in 2011 after a pro-democracy uprising against al-Assad’s authoritarian rule quickly expanded to fully fledged infighting, with Islamic State seizing large parts of Syria and Iraq by 2013.

At its height, Islamic State held about a third of Syria and 40 per cent of Iraq, but by the end of 2017 it had lost 95 per cent of its territory.

There is also a Caucasus branch of ISIS, which operates mainly in Russia’s largely Muslim North Caucasus region, mainly in the Russian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Chechnya has a long history of rebelling against Moscow rule, with an Islamist insurgency leading to armed conflict between Russia and militants from 2007 to 2017.

Islamic State more broadly has long recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Not the first terror attack on Russia

If Islamic State is behind the shooting, it would make it the latest of many Islamist-linked attacks in or against Russia over the past 20 years.

The country was shaken by a series of deadly terror attacks in the early 2000s during Russia’s fighting with separatists in Chechnya.

In October 2002, Chechen militants took about 800 people hostage at a Moscow theatre. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed the building. 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters died, most of them from the effects of narcotic gas which Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

In September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan in southern Russia, taking hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later. More than 330 people, about half of them children, were killed.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board. Most of them were Russians returning from holidays in Egypt.

The group has also claimed responsibility for several attacks in Caucasus and other Russian regions in the past years.

ABC/wires