Russia is mourning the deaths of at least 137 people, including several children, in last Friday’s horrific terrorist attack on a rock concert on the edge of Moscow. Countries around the world will sympathise with the victims and their families, and the trauma the attack has caused to those living in the Russian capital and beyond. But many outside Russia will be enraged, at the same time, by a Kremlin narrative that seeks, without evidence, to suggest Ukraine was somehow behind the assault.
The atrocity signals the alarming return of Islamist-linked terrorism to Russian cities after a decade in which it had seemed in retreat, though the source today differs from the early 2000s. The Crocus City Hall incident has echoes of Moscow’s Nord-Ost theatre siege in 2002, where more than 170 people died, and the 2004 seizure of a school in Beslan in which 334 people, including 186 children, perished.
Those attacks were carried out by Chechen militants fighting a separatist war against Russia, who had ties to al-Qaeda-related groups. Responsibility for the concert assault has been claimed instead by Isis, the jihadi group, with western countries attributing it specifically to an Afghan-based affiliate called Isis-Khorasan, or Isis-K. Isis-K struck Russia’s embassy in Kabul in 2022 and has been “fixated” on Russia for two years, according to the Soufan Center, a think-tank. The group accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood on its hands from Russia’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. The Isis claim to be behind the Moscow attack is reinforced by its release of bodycam footage.
The US has pointed the finger at Isis, and officials have confirmed they had intelligence this month suggesting Isis-K was planning an imminent attack in Moscow — which they shared with Russia under a “duty to warn”. The US embassy advised Americans to avoid large gatherings in the capital. President Vladimir Putin denounced the US warnings as “provocations”.
In a less authoritarian state, the population would be demanding to know why their security services failed to stop an attack whose possibility had been flagged, and why their president dismissed the alerts. They would ask whether sending thousands of troops to a senseless war, and diverting intelligence resources away from counterterrorism and into the fight against Ukraine — and suppressing internal dissent — has made the country more vulnerable. Putin, it should be remembered, was elected president in 2000 on a promise to keep Russians safe after mysterious Moscow apartment bombings that he blamed on Chechens.
Putin said late on Monday that “radical Islamists” committed the concert attack, but now needed to know who ordered it and “who benefits” — adding that the assault was “also part of the Kyiv regime’s attacks on Russia”. The president earlier claimed that four alleged assailants detained on Saturday had been attempting to cross into Ukraine. Kyiv has vehemently denied any connection. Appearing in court, the four reportedly Tajik men appeared to have been beaten, and videos have circulated showing their apparent torture. The concern is they are being brutalised to ensure they confess not just to the crime, but to a version that matches the Kremlin’s account.
Blaming Kyiv may be, in part, an attempt to cover up failures by the president and his secret service cronies. But Putin has instrumentalised past terror attacks for his own purposes, and may be planning to do so again. To use the Moscow assault as a pretext for a further clampdown on Russians, or to intensify the war on Ukraine — including a new mobilisation — would be an outrage.
Friday’s attack should serve as an alarm call beyond Russia, too. In the past year Isis-K has also staged deadly assaults in Pakistan and Iran. While Isis itself may be somewhat diminished, events in Moscow show the threat of violence from its offshoots remains very real.