The brutal attack perpetrated by at least four people at the
Crocus City Hall complex in Moscow
, where the rock band Piknik was about to play and which so far left 133 dead, has as its main target the terrorist organization ISIS-K.
Although Russian President
Vladimir Putin
did not mention them in his message and only spoke about
Ukraine,
the group has already claimed responsibility for the attack, which the United States had warned about.
This group also recently had the big soccer event as its objective: it had planned to attack the
Qatar 2022 World Cup,
in which the Argentine National Team was crowned.
On Friday night, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack with a message published by the
jihadist group's
Amaq agency on its
Telegram
channel : "ISIS-K fighters attacked a large group of Christians in the city of Krasnogorsk , on the outskirts of the Russian capital, Moscow, and killed and injured hundreds of people and caused extensive destruction there before safely retreating to their bases."
ISIS-Khorasan
(ISKP) also claimed responsibility for organizing the bombing in Iran in January of this year, an action that caused 84 deaths near the tomb of General Qasem Soleimani, which was commemorated. the fourth anniversary of his assassination by the United States.
But before these two attacks, the terrorist group - very active in Afghanistan - had one of its first operations in August 2021. When Joe Biden's administration began its withdrawal from that country, after 20 years of invasion by the United States, ISIS-K carried out a suicide attack at Kabul airport.
He killed 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers.
Then the group began to grow and expand across the Afghan slopes.
The photo of the detainees, next to an ISIS flag (Brief)
In April 2023, based on a leak of US intelligence documents published by
The Washington Post
, the Pentagon had information that Afghanistan had become a new scene of terrorism.
Even among the documents, there were targets such as embassies, churches and the
FIFA World Cup in Qatar
, which attracted more than 2 million spectators that Argentina won thanks to Lionel Messi.
After the ISIS-K attack on Moscow, the data from the Qatar World Cup was recovered by the defense and security editor of the British newspaper
The Guardian
, Dan Sabbagh.
"'ISIS has been developing a profitable model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, agents in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks,' says the assessment, which is labeled top secret and carries the logos of several Departments of Defense. 'The model will likely allow ISIS to overcome obstacles - such as competent security services - and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing opportunities for disruption
,'" details the article published by
The Washington Post
.
Jabr Hammoud Jabr Al Nuaimi, spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of the Interior at the World Cup.
Photo: EFE/Noushad Thekkayil
The revelation of the North American media was from the leak of a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who shared the information on the messaging and live streaming application
Discord
.
Those 2020 documents indicate that ISIS-K sought to "gain experience in
creating chemical weapons and operating drones
, and a plot in which the group's supporters would kidnap Iraqi diplomats in Belgium or France in an attempt to secure the release of 4,000 militants imprisoned".
"The documents also detail ISIS-K's response to several recent world events, including the consideration of
sending a suicide bomber to Qatar
to attack the World Cup last year," say the revelations published by the North American newspaper in April 2023. .
In November 2022, six days before the start of the World Cup, the warning of a possible ISIS-K attack was not only notified to Qatar, but also reached the media.
On November 14, different newspapers, such as
La Razón
(Spain), published the threat from ISIS-K to that Arab State in West Asia.
Through
Telegram
channels , followers of the terrorist group spoke of a
"golden opportunity."
Qatari security forces during the 2022 World Cup. Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP
But in addition to the World Cup, where they were unable to carry out any attacks, militants also devised
violent responses to the burning of the Koran
by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands.
"Those plots included calls for attacks on Swedish or Dutch diplomatic facilities in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Russia, Turkey and other countries, according to the leaked documents, although no such attack appears to have been carried out,"
The Washington Post
reported.
.
Beyond remembering the planning of massive attacks that could not be carried out, in the event that ISIS-K's responsibility for the attack in Moscow is confirmed, the panorama becomes more insecure for everyone.
"Whatever the West's broader relationship with Moscow, counterterrorism researchers know it's time to be particularly vigilant," notes The
Guardian
editor Dan Sabbagh.
The origin of the letter K in the new ISIS
To understand the fear of this terrorist group, it is necessary to establish the coordinates of ISIS-K.
The organization grew and spread in Afghanistan after the United States left that territory in August 2021. That was when Joe Biden's presidency disorderly ordered the withdrawal after 20 years of occupation.
ISIS-K militants are
Sunnis
, the majority branch of Islam.
They consider the Shiites, but especially Iran, enemies.
They seek to form an independent Caliphate with lands from Syria and Iraq, with the objective of
rebuilding the province of Khorasan.
Hence the
letter K in its acronym.
The ancient province of Khorasan extended into the current province of the same name in Iran, but also occupied territories in Uzbekistan, other extensive territories in Tajikistan and practically all of western Afghanistan.
However, the attack in Russia may be due to an old grudge from 2015, when Putin's government entered the war in Syria to support the regime of Bashar al Assasd, an undisputed ally of Iran.
Together they fought ISIS.