The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) attacks on a concert hall in Moscow on March 22, which killed more than 130 people, raised many questions. Among them: How could Russia, a major power with a sophisticated intelligence community, not only fail to prevent the bloodshed but also disregard a U.S. warning of an imminent terrorist attack?
The answer is that Russia’s intelligence community has been showing signs of dysfunction for quite a while.
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the community had predicted that the war would end with a swift victory within ten days. Instead, Ukraine fought off the assault on Kiev and Russia is now in the third year of a conflict that appears to have no decisive end in sight. Similarly, Russian intelligence failed to predict or prevent a mutiny by the paramilitary Wagner group in June 2023 that briefly appeared to threaten President Vladimir Putin’s long hold on power.
Moreover, since the onset of the Ukraine war, sabotage incidents, such as explosions, mysterious fires, and gunshots, have become so frequent that even Putin has urged the intelligence community to improve its counterintelligence efforts. It is plausible to argue that the growth of such threats as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine may have diverted Russia’s counterintelligence focus away from other challenges, including Islamic fundamentalist terrorism emanating from the Middle East and Central Asia.
The heightened tension with the West over the war in Ukraine, which has led to a new generation of espionage competition between the West and Moscow, has likely overloaded the intelligence community, making Russia’s security system even more vulnerable.
Russia’s failure to predict and prevent the Moscow attacks also reflects a rise in activity by the group ISIS-K outside the boundaries of its old sanctuary in Afghanistan.
To understand ISIS-K, it’s important to recognize that the exercise of violence is a primary survival strategy for all such radical groups. Ruthless brutality against perceived enemies holds a strong appeal for a small, yet significant minority of young Muslims. The combination of poverty, unemployment, and, most critically, a sense of hopelessness has fostered in them a desire for revenge against those they perceive as oppressors. Additionally, for jihadists, the use of violence serves as a form of advertisement; the greater the violence, the more extensive the media coverage, and consequently, the greater the attention from those who might be attracted by their ideological fervor.
ISIS-K needs to employ violence to survive and recruit, making the execution of terrorist attacks a matter of necessity. However, the scale of the operation could be attributed to the group’s larger motive of aiming to succeed al-Qaeda and the original ISIS as the world’s leading jihadist faction.
The original Arab branch of ISIS, which arose from al-Qaeda and other Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Syrian civil war beginning in 2011, controlled a significant portion of Iraq and Syria at its peak in 2014, governing an estimated ten million people. However, it failed to restore its position and influence in the region after losing its final stronghold, Al-Baghouz in Syria, in 2019, as well as a series of leaders including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, followed by Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi in February 2022, Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in October 2022, and Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini in October 2023. The group’s militants have been operating sporadically in isolated cells.
Al-Qaeda has faced similar challenges. The elimination of Osama bin Laden in 2011 dealt a significant blow to the group. Further weakening its position, the Syria-based al-Nusra Front’s decision in 2016 to disassociate from al-Qaeda—despite originally being established as its Syrian division—severely impaired al-Qaeda’s influence. This decline was exacerbated by the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor, in 2022. Given the diminished stature of older jihadist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, ISIS-K likely sees an opportunity to assert itself as the leading jihadist faction.
While sharing a propensity for violence with ISIS and al-Qaeda, ISIS-K differs in its target selection. Al-Qaeda and ISIS primarily focused on the United States and U.S.-backed entities, viewing the U.S. as the principal oppressor of Muslims worldwide. However, the Syrian civil war broadened the scope of perceived adversaries for jihadists to include the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, whose support was essential to preserving the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In the run-up to the Moscow attacks, ISIS-K took responsibility for deadly terrorism in January 2024 in Iran. These attacks killed nearly 100 people during a memorial for the late top commander Qassem Soleimani. ISIS-K has also carried out and plotted attacks in Turkey and Europe after being largely contained by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The new focus on Russia and Iran can be attributed to a variety of factors, including geographical proximity and demographic considerations. ISIS-K’s main region of influence is Central Asia, neighboring both Iran and Russia, and both countries have large Central Asian migrant communities that are fluent in Persian and Russian. Four men charged with the Moscow attacks who appeared in court on March 25 were identified by Russian media as citizens of Tajikistan.
Another possible reason for choosing these targets is the perception that both Iran and Russia have less effective intelligence capabilities and a lower capacity for retaliatory response compared to the United States. Additionally, both nations have over-extended their military and intelligence resources due to ongoing conflicts with regional and international rivals. In this context, it seems that ISIS-K is strategically choosing to confront what it perceives as the lesser and closer oppressors, instead of continuing to fight a bigger, better-defended, and more distant adversary.
Arman Mahmoudian is a lecturer and scholar of international relations, focusing on Russia and the Middle East, at the University of South Florida (USF). His handle on X, formerly known as Twitter, is @MahmoudianArman
Moscow Attack Reflects Russian Intelligence Weakness and ISIS-K Ambitions
By Arman Mahmoudian
Middle East & North Africa
The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) attacks on a concert hall in Moscow on March 22, which killed more than 130 people, raised many questions. Among them: How could Russia, a major power with a sophisticated intelligence community, not only fail to prevent the bloodshed but also disregard a U.S. warning of an imminent terrorist attack?
The answer is that Russia’s intelligence community has been showing signs of dysfunction for quite a while.
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the community had predicted that the war would end with a swift victory within ten days. Instead, Ukraine fought off the assault on Kiev and Russia is now in the third year of a conflict that appears to have no decisive end in sight. Similarly, Russian intelligence failed to predict or prevent a mutiny by the paramilitary Wagner group in June 2023 that briefly appeared to threaten President Vladimir Putin’s long hold on power.
Moreover, since the onset of the Ukraine war, sabotage incidents, such as explosions, mysterious fires, and gunshots, have become so frequent that even Putin has urged the intelligence community to improve its counterintelligence efforts. It is plausible to argue that the growth of such threats as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine may have diverted Russia’s counterintelligence focus away from other challenges, including Islamic fundamentalist terrorism emanating from the Middle East and Central Asia.
The heightened tension with the West over the war in Ukraine, which has led to a new generation of espionage competition between the West and Moscow, has likely overloaded the intelligence community, making Russia’s security system even more vulnerable.
Russia’s failure to predict and prevent the Moscow attacks also reflects a rise in activity by the group ISIS-K outside the boundaries of its old sanctuary in Afghanistan.
To understand ISIS-K, it’s important to recognize that the exercise of violence is a primary survival strategy for all such radical groups. Ruthless brutality against perceived enemies holds a strong appeal for a small, yet significant minority of young Muslims. The combination of poverty, unemployment, and, most critically, a sense of hopelessness has fostered in them a desire for revenge against those they perceive as oppressors. Additionally, for jihadists, the use of violence serves as a form of advertisement; the greater the violence, the more extensive the media coverage, and consequently, the greater the attention from those who might be attracted by their ideological fervor.
ISIS-K needs to employ violence to survive and recruit, making the execution of terrorist attacks a matter of necessity. However, the scale of the operation could be attributed to the group’s larger motive of aiming to succeed al-Qaeda and the original ISIS as the world’s leading jihadist faction.
The original Arab branch of ISIS, which arose from al-Qaeda and other Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Syrian civil war beginning in 2011, controlled a significant portion of Iraq and Syria at its peak in 2014, governing an estimated ten million people. However, it failed to restore its position and influence in the region after losing its final stronghold, Al-Baghouz in Syria, in 2019, as well as a series of leaders including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, followed by Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi in February 2022, Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in October 2022, and Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini in October 2023. The group’s militants have been operating sporadically in isolated cells.
Al-Qaeda has faced similar challenges. The elimination of Osama bin Laden in 2011 dealt a significant blow to the group. Further weakening its position, the Syria-based al-Nusra Front’s decision in 2016 to disassociate from al-Qaeda—despite originally being established as its Syrian division—severely impaired al-Qaeda’s influence. This decline was exacerbated by the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor, in 2022. Given the diminished stature of older jihadist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, ISIS-K likely sees an opportunity to assert itself as the leading jihadist faction.
While sharing a propensity for violence with ISIS and al-Qaeda, ISIS-K differs in its target selection. Al-Qaeda and ISIS primarily focused on the United States and U.S.-backed entities, viewing the U.S. as the principal oppressor of Muslims worldwide. However, the Syrian civil war broadened the scope of perceived adversaries for jihadists to include the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, whose support was essential to preserving the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In the run-up to the Moscow attacks, ISIS-K took responsibility for deadly terrorism in January 2024 in Iran. These attacks killed nearly 100 people during a memorial for the late top commander Qassem Soleimani. ISIS-K has also carried out and plotted attacks in Turkey and Europe after being largely contained by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The new focus on Russia and Iran can be attributed to a variety of factors, including geographical proximity and demographic considerations. ISIS-K’s main region of influence is Central Asia, neighboring both Iran and Russia, and both countries have large Central Asian migrant communities that are fluent in Persian and Russian. Four men charged with the Moscow attacks who appeared in court on March 25 were identified by Russian media as citizens of Tajikistan.
Another possible reason for choosing these targets is the perception that both Iran and Russia have less effective intelligence capabilities and a lower capacity for retaliatory response compared to the United States. Additionally, both nations have over-extended their military and intelligence resources due to ongoing conflicts with regional and international rivals. In this context, it seems that ISIS-K is strategically choosing to confront what it perceives as the lesser and closer oppressors, instead of continuing to fight a bigger, better-defended, and more distant adversary.
Arman Mahmoudian is a lecturer and scholar of international relations, focusing on Russia and the Middle East, at the University of South Florida (USF). His handle on X, formerly known as Twitter, is @MahmoudianArman
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