Experts say Russia is paying for its multiple confrontations with Islamists

On Thursday, Russian investigators once again accused the perpetrators of the attacks, which killed at least 144 people, of being linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”. But in the official IS weekly, Naba, published on Friday, an article on the attack advises those “immersed in conspiracy theories” to “stock up on defeatist theories” against what awaits them, notes Lawrence Bindner, co-founder. The JOS Project, a platform for online analysis of extremist propaganda.

Sympathizers, at the same time, “often protested with irritation, sometimes with irony, about the fact that the group’s responsibility was being questioned”, adds the expert. Russian security services also said three “citizens of a Central Asian country” who were planning bomb attacks in southwestern Russia were arrested on Friday.

That ISIS attacked Russia shouldn’t come as a surprise: the country makes an “obvious target for historical and contemporary reasons,” emphasizes Jerome Dravon, a jihad expert at the Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization. “The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent decade of occupation still stirs resentment among many jihadists.”

Moscow subsequently joined the Bashar al-Assad regime in the Syrian civil war against jihadist groups. And in Africa, Russian mercenaries are collaborating with the military in power in Mali against al-Qaeda and ISIS.

“Vanguard of the Shia World”

After all, for several years now, Moscow has been moving closer to Tehran, where Shiite Islam is abhorrent to Sunni IS. “IS views Russia as the leader of the Shiite world,” sums up Colin Clark, director of research at New York’s Sofan Center. “On the list of those they hate most, the Shiites top the Americans, Israel and so-called apostate regimes.” The group claimed responsibility for the January attack in Kerman, Iran, which killed 89 people.

It has a deeply antagonistic relationship with Russia’s Muslim minorities. Two wars in Chechnya in 1994 and 2000 and Russian intervention against an Islamist insurgency in Dagestan in the North Caucasus have left their mark.

In addition, Frederick Kagan, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, describes Moscow’s “schizophrenic approach.” The Kremlin promotes a discourse of harmony in the country of about 20 million Muslims, while tolerating widespread discrimination targeting millions of undocumented migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The Russian army recruited from immigrant and disadvantaged backgrounds in Russia for its war in Ukraine, offering large salaries. Its contingent also includes units from the country’s Muslim republics.

But Vladimir Putin’s “turn towards ultranationalist, Russian and orthodox Christian pseudo-ideology has strengthened the anti-immigrant movement”, believes Frederick Kagan. Uzbek analyst Temur Umarov describes rising ethno-religious tensions after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In an article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he notes that xenophobia has become commonplace among military bloggers, backed by “especially the anti-immigrant Russian security apparatus” and increasingly repressive laws.

A target is considered invalid

IS has not formally attributed the attack to EI-K, its Afghan subsidiary, suspected number one because it draws a large proportion of its militants from the Caucasus and Central Asia. But whatever their allegiance, the alleged perpetrators are Tajik. Analysts agree that the risk remains high in Russia, given the large pool of individuals likely to take action.

Russian expert on Afghanistan Andrey Serenko underlines, IS has long targeted the younger generations. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, “IS recruiters were trying to educate 15- to 16-year-old middle and high school students in Kazakhstan,” he explains.

He describes the “romantic cult around jihadi stories” and proposals for distance training before going on the kill in Russia. The project failed, but the intention was there. Obsessed with Ukraine, Russian security services today warn many observers expect another attack, despite what the Kremlin says represents an unwarranted target.