Jihadist terrorism faded from international headlines after the fall of ISIS’s caliphate in 2019. With last week’s attack on a Moscow-area concert venue, it returned, raising a number of questions: What can be said about the group that claimed responsibility, ISIS-K? Why did the group attack Russia? And is jihadist terrorism back, globally?
First, the group itself. ISIS-K is an ISIS branch, the “K” standing for “Khorasan”—a historical region spanning northeastern Iran, northwestern Afghanistan, and much of Turkmenistan. Today, the group is best known as the ISIS branch in Afghanistan, where it wages a jihadist insurgency against the ruling Taliban. Some of its recent history: As US troops departed Afghanistan in 2021, ISIS-K perpetrated a deadly bombing at the crowded and chaotic Kabul airport. In early January this year, ISIS-K struck further afield: US intelligence assessed it to be responsible for two devastating bombings in Iran, Reuters reported. As for ISIS-K’s links to ISIS writ large, terrorism expert and Clemson University professor Amira Jadoon said during a panel discussion of ISIS-K hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last October that the links between ISIS and ISIS-K are murky, but there appears to be some degree of organizational and financial connection. ISIS-K recruits from across the region, Jadoon said. Summing up the main argument of a book on ISIS-K she coauthored with Andrew Mines, Jadoon said the group’s “strategic selection of alliances, as well as its rivalries with local groups, have really been central to not just its initial rise but also its ability to overcome its losses and then resurge post-2021.”
Why attack Russia? As Colin P. Clarke of The Soufan Center points out in a comprehensive interview with Foreign Policy Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal, Moscow has fought against Muslim insurgents in Chechnya and Dagestan, and the Soviet Union waged a nine-year war in Afghanistan. Bloomberg columnist Marc Champion notes that extreme Islamists “make no distinction between Russian and Western colonialism. As far as Islamic State or al-Qaeda is concerned, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s military interventions in Syria and Chechnya are no different from America’s in Iraq or Libya.”
So is jihadist terrorism back,? At American Purpose, Jeffrey Gedmin repeats an argument against withdrawing from Afghanistan: By departing, the US left in place conditions for transnational jihadist terrorism to fester. Writing at The Conversation, Jadoon and Sara Harmouch see broader ambitions for ISIS-K: “By targeting a major power like Russia,” they write, the group “aims to project a broader message of intimidation aimed at other states involved in anti-Islamic State group operations and undermine the public’s sense of security. Additionally, operations such as the Moscow attack seek to solidify ISIS-K’s position within the broader Islamic State group network, potentially securing more support and resources.” Then again, as The Soufan Center’s Clarke tells FP’s Agrawal, jihadist terrorism never really left. Attacks in Europe generate more headlines, but jihadist groups govern stretches of territory in West Africa, for instance; attacks in the developing world don’t cause the same degree of global alarm.