Why is ISIS targeting Russia with the Moscow concert hall attack?
More than 133 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a brazen attack on concertgoers at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Friday, just before a Soviet-era rock band performed.
Attackers wearing camouflage outfits allegedly detonated explosives inside the music venue after opening fire, causing the roof to collapse and erupt into flames.
The Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISIS-K is the branch of ISIL that operates in Afghanistan. It has claimed responsibility for the attack and US authorities have verified the veracity of that allegation.
The group, which derives its name from an erstwhile caliphate that formerly included parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, is still one of the most active ISIS branches.
The organization formed from eastern Afghanistan in late 2014, consisting of Pakistan Taliban breakaway militants and local fighters who swore allegiance to the late ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Murat Aslan is a military expert and former Turkish army colonel. He stated that ISIS’s Afghanistan affiliate is known for its radical and tough methodologies.
The 2021 bombings outside Kabul airport that resulted in the deaths of at least 175 people, the deaths of 13 US soldiers and several injuries were attributed to ISKP members.
The ISIL offshoot was previously accused of carrying out a horrific attack on a maternity facility in Kabul in May 2020 which killed 24 people including mothers and newborns. In November of the same year the organization launched an attack on Kabul University killing at least 22 instructors and students.
Iran held the organization accountable for two distinct attacks on the Shah Cheragh, a significant shrine in southern Shiraz, last year that left at least 14 people dead and over 40 wounded.
More than 900 people were held captive by Chechen rebels in the Dubrovka theater in Moscow in 2002, when they demanded that Russian forces leave Chechnya and that the country’s conflict in the area stop.
Russian special troops raided the theatre to end the siege, killing 130 people, the majority of whom were smothered by a chemical deployed by security forces to render the Chechen rebels unconscious.
