The armed men used guns and machetes to attack residents of villages in Beni territory, in North Kivu province.
Rebel fighters affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) have killed at least 38 people in an overnight attack on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), officials and a civil society leader in the region have said.
The armed men used guns and machetes to attack residents of villages in Beni territory, in North Kivu province, overnight on Friday, local official Fabien Kakule said.
District official Leon Kakule Siviwe said that the recent surge in violence was due to the attackers taking advantage of a small security presence.
Local civil society leader Justin Kavalami blamed members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) for the attack.
The ADF, which is also accused of being behind another village assault that killed at least 16 people earlier this week, was originally based in neighbouring Uganda. After spreading to the eastern DRC, it pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2018 and has mounted frequent attacks, further destabilising a region where many armed groups are active.
The ADF has killed more than 50 people in the war-torn region of the DRC this week, local officials said.
Since the end of 2021, the Congolese and Ugandan armies have conducted joint operations against the ADF in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri, but have so far failed to stop the deadly attacks on civilians.
The eastern DRC has been plagued by violence by armed groups for decades, with both the government and foreign actors providing belligerents with weapons. The Rwandan-backed M23 (March 23 Movement) resumed its armed campaign in the region at the end of 2021, seizing swaths of territory in North Kivu, as intensified fighting continues to displace tens of thousands of people.
About 6.9 million people across the DRC were displaced by the end of last year, mostly in the eastern provinces.
Since an escalation of hostilities in March 2022, more than 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes in North Kivu in the east of the country.
President Filipe Nyusi said the country’s army is battling ISIL-linked groups in gas-rich Cabo Delgado’s Macomia.
Mozambique’s army is fighting armed groups who launched a major attack on the northern town of Macomia, President Filipe Nyusi has said in a televised address.
The town is in Cabo Delgado, a gas-rich northern province where groups linked to the ISIL (ISIS) group, launched an armed uprising in 2017. Despite a large security response, there has been a surge in attacks since January this year.
Two security sources told the Reuters news agency that hundreds of fighters are believed to be involved in the latest attack that took place on Friday morning.
“Macomia is under attack since this morning. Fire exchange still continues,” Nyusi said at about 10:00 GMT, adding that the armed group fighters initially withdrew after about 45 minutes of fighting, but then regrouped and came back.
Friday’s attack appeared to be the most serious attack in the area in some time.
A regional force from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which deployed in Mozambique in 2021, started withdrawing last month as its mandate ends in July.
Piers Pigou, head of the Southern Africa Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, said the attack on the Macomia district headquarters validates concerns over a security vacuum opening up with the drawdown of the Southern African troops.
“Claims that the province has been for the most part stabilised are evidently not accurate,” he told Reuters.
Nyusi said that attacks can take place in such periods of transition and that he hoped the SADC forces would be able to step in and help. It was unclear if they were still deployed in the area or involved in the fight.
Rwanda has also deployed troops to Mozambique to help fight the armed groups.
Figures released by the International Organisation for Migration in March show more than 110,000 people have been displaced since the end of last year, amid escalating violence in the province.
The offensive comes as French oil company TotalEnergies is seeking to restart a $20bn liquefied natural gas terminal in Cabo Delgado that was halted in 2021 due to the violence. That project is some 200km (124 miles) north of Macomia, the town under attack.
ExxonMobil, with partner Eni, is also developing an LNG project in northern Mozambique and said last week that it was “optimistic and pushing forward” as the security situation had improved.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack on a concert hall outside Moscow but suggests Ukraine was also somehow involved.
Eleven people have been detained in connection with Friday’s attack, which saw camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire on concert-goers and set the building ablaze, killing at least 137 people.
“We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries,” Putin said in a televised meeting on Monday.
“This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 with the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime,” he said, referring to Ukraine.
A fire is seen at the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow on March 22, 2024 [Sergei Vedyashkin/Moscow News Agency via AP]
“Of course, it is necessary to answer the question, ‘Why after committing the crime the terrorists tried to go to Ukraine?’ Who was waiting for them there?” Putin asked.
Putin didn’t mention the affiliate of ISIL (ISIS) that claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Islamic State in Khorasan Province has said several times since Friday that it was responsible, and ISIL-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen during the attack.
After the ISIL affiliate claimed responsibility, United States intelligence backed up its claims. French President Emmanuel Macron said France has intelligence pointing to “an ISIL entity” as responsible.
Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to assign blame, urging reporters to wait for the results of the investigation in Russia.
He also refused to comment on reports that the US warned authorities in Moscow on March 7 about a possible attack, saying any such intelligence is confidential.
‘Kill them all’
As Putin spoke, calls mounted in Russia to harshly punish those behind the attack.
Four men were charged on Sunday night by a Moscow court with carrying out a “terrorist” attack. At their court appearance, they showed signs of being severely beaten. Civil liberties groups cited this as a sign that Russia’s poor record on human rights under Putin was bound to worsen.
Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabari, reporting from Moscow, said the ages of the four suspects who appeared in court range from 19 to 32 and they appeared to be in “fairly bad shape physically”.
“They had bruises on their faces that were visible, and also one of the men was semiconscious. He was wheeled into the courthouse with his doctor,” Jabari said.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the investigation is ongoing but promised that “the perpetrators will be punished. They do not deserve mercy.”
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, urged authorities to “kill them all”.
The attack on Crocus City Hall on the western outskirts of Moscow injured more than 180 people. A total of 97 people remained hospitalised, officials said.
As they mowed down concertgoers with gunfire, the attackers set fire to the vast concert hall, and the resulting blaze caused the roof to collapse.
The search for victims will continue until at least Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
The four suspects were identified in the Russian media as Tajik nationals. At least two of the suspects admitted culpability, court officials said, although their conditions raised questions about whether their statements were coerced.
The men were identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The Federal Security Service said seven other suspects have been detained. Three of them appeared in court on Monday with no signs of injuries, and they were placed in pre-trial detention on terrorism charges. The fate of the other suspects remained unclear.
Meanwhile, security has been heightened in Moscow, Jabari said.
“So far, there have been at least 10 security alerts in shopping malls which had to be evacuated in the capital,” she said.
Russia has lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades.
President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning for Sunday after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack, in which 133 people were killed, including three children, and more than 150 injured. The death toll is likely to further rise.
“I express my deep, sincere condolences to all those who lost their loved ones,” Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday, his first public comments on the attack. “The whole country and our entire people are grieving with you.”
ISIL (ISIS) armed group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the group in connection with the attackers, whom he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He asserted that some on “the Ukrainian side” had prepared to spirit them across the border.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied any role in the attack, which Putin also blamed on “international terrorism”.
People on Sunday laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men burst in on Friday just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit, Afraid of Nothing.
The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets.
People lay flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]
It was the deadliest attack on Russian territory since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when attackers linked to a Muslim group took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.
Governor of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov said on Sunday the rescue operation was completed and the search operation is still ongoing.
“Identification by relatives is ahead. In hospitals, doctors are fighting for the lives of 107 people,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapavalova, reporting from outside the concert hall, said people have been bringing flowers, candles, stuffed animals and posters for a makeshift memorial outside the hall.
“We can see flags raised to half-staff on the Russian house of parliament and other buildings. People are shocked, they’re grieving… there are numerous memorials throughout Russia,” she said.
“The clearance of the rubble continues with rescue dogs looking for people under the rubble… the death toll could rise.”
Long lines formed in Moscow to donate blood. Blood banks said on Sunday they now had enough blood supplies for four to six months.
Countries worldwide have expressed horror at the attack and sent their condolences to the Russian people.
Following a Palm Sunday Mass at St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis sent prayers to victims of the attack.
“I assure my prayers for the victims of the cowardly terrorist attack carried out the other evening in Moscow,” the 87-year-old pope said.
Headed for Ukraine
Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow.
“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.
Meduza, a Russian publication based in Latvia, confirmed the claims by Russian state officials that the suspects were headed for Ukraine, by geolocating the filming location of the reported arrest of one of the suspects.
According to footage provided by the FSB, officials arrested a 30-year-old near the town of Khatsun in Russia’s Bryansk region, located 14km (8.6 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Meduza reported on Saturday.
The suspects have been brought to Moscow and may appear in court later in the day, according to local news agencies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was typical of Putin and “other thugs” to seek to divert blame.
ISIL, which once sought control over swaths of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq agency said on Telegram.
On Saturday night, ISIL released on its Telegram channels what it said was footage of the attack.
In footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.
“I shot people,” the suspect, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin, said in poor and highly accented Russian.
When asked why, he said: “For money.” The man said he had been promised half a million roubles ($5,400).
One was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.
ISIL behind attack?
The White House said the US government shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. It said ISIL bore sole responsibility for the attack.
“There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday any statement made by US authorities to vindicate Kyiv until the end of the probe into the attack should be considered as evidence.
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told the TASS news agency on Saturday the US did not pass any specific information through the Russian embassy in Washington about preparations for the attack.
“Nothing was passed,” the ambassador said. “No concrete information, nothing was transferred to us.”
Aleksandra Chanysheva is convinced that lax security is what made the Friday night attack on a concert hall just northwest of Moscow possible.
“Guards are the most ridiculed and underpaid people in Russia,” the 51-year-old teacher of Russian language and literature at a public school told Al Jazeera. “And they do their work in the worst way possible.”
The attack on the Crocus City Hall killed at least 133 people, including three children, and wounded more than 100 others, Russian investigators said on Saturday.
Several heavily armed, camouflage-wearing men sprayed a crowd of spectators that gathered to hear Soviet-era rock band Picnic with bullets, set the building on fire and escaped in a “white Renault,” officials said.
Some experts agree with Chanysheva – given post-Soviet Russia’s history of lethal attacks on crowded public places that dates back to when Moscow started the second Chechen war a quarter of a century ago. But other analysts and Russian opposition groups argue that an even darker possibility cannot be ruled out: they point to potential political gains for President Vladimir Putin from the Friday massacre.
Back in the late 1990s, Chechen separatists and fighters from the mostly Muslim North Caucasus region, launched a wave of attacks, seizing concert halls, hospitals and public schools; sending suicide bombers to Moscow’s sprawling subway system; and detonating explosives on buses and planes.
The Friday attack “showed complete impotence” of Russia’s special services, national guard and the entire law enforcement system, Nikolay Mitrokhin, research fellow at Germany’s University of Bremen told Al Jazeera.
The intelligence services received repeated warnings from the West – including a public alert from the United States on March 8.
Moscow, Russia: The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours. As a reminder, our Travel Advisory for Russia is… pic.twitter.com/J5oLgOvFY4
“The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours,” the country’s mission in Moscow wrote on X.
But days later, on March 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin snubbed that warning about possible attacks in Moscow, and described it as “blackmail”.
A brand new, comprehensive face-recognition system across Moscow that has been widely used to identify opposition protesters also failed to stop Friday’s attack.
And it took authorities an hour and a half to deploy special forces to the site in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk because of heavy traffic jams.
“Where are the helicopters for speedy deployment to critical sites in the metropolitan conditions of Moscow? Where are the armed vehicles? Where are these pumped-up stern guys from [promotional] videos?” Mitrokhin asked.
“We know where they are – burned down with their vehicles on the roads of the Kyiv region, sitting in underground holes near Donetsk or patrolling the Luhansk region … not where the real danger is but there the crazy president decided to wage a war,” he said.
A boy places flowers at a fence beside the Crocus City Hall, on the western edge of Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, March 23, 2024, following an attack for which the ISIL group claimed responsibility [Vitaly Smolnikov/AP Photo]
ISIL claims responsibility
The Afghan arm of ISIL/ISIS – known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISIS-K – has claimed responsibility for the attack via the Telegram channel of Amaq, a media outlet affiliated with the group.
It said its fighters attacked “a large gathering of Christians”, killing and wounding hundreds and causing “great destruction” before withdrawing “safely”. ISIS-K is waging a war on the Taliban movement that seized power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US forces in 2021.
Even though Moscow still lists the Taliban as a “terrorist group,” it has intensified contact with it, welcoming its emissaries in Moscow and to regional security conferences.
The US has said that its intelligence backs up the ISIL claim of responsibility for the attack.
But neither Kremlin-controlled media nor Putin’s opponents are as convinced.
A Russian tank fires at Ukrainian troops from a position near the border with Ukraine in the Belgorod region of Russia, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 [Russian Defence Ministry Press Service via AP]
Russia points finger at Ukraine
“These claims could be a fake smokescreen and need a thorough check,” according to an editorial in the Moskovskiy Komsomolets, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, published on Saturday.
Politician Alexander Khinstein claimed that early on Saturday, Russian police stopped a car with suspected attackers in the western Bryansk region that borders Ukraine and Belarus.
Two suspects have been apprehended after a shootout and the remaining passengers fled to the forest, he claimed on Telegram.
Tajik passports were found in the car along with a pistol and ammunition, he claimed, citing police sources. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan, and its residents speak a language related to Farsi.
By Saturday afternoon in Moscow, Russia’s Federal Security Service, better known as the FSB, claimed to have detained 11 men, including four alleged attackers. It said they were going to cross into Ukraine, where they had “contacts”.
In response, a Ukrainian think tank blamed Russian special services. They organised the attack “in order to blame Ukraine and find an excuse for a new mobilisation in Russia,” the Ukrainian Center to Counter Disinformation said in a statement quoted by the Kyiv-based UNIAN news agency on Saturday.
Fire and smoke rise from a destroyed apartment building as Russian Emergency Situations Ministry officers and firefighters try to save people in Moscow, on September 9, 1999 as a massive explosion shattered a nine-storey apartment building. Russia blamed a series of such attacks in the late 1990s on Chechen rebels [FILE: Ivan Sekretarev/ AP Photo]
Memories of Russia’s dark 1990s resurface
Other independent experts also questioned the suggestions of ISIL’s responsibility for the attacks.
“Very probably, Russian special services knew about [the attack] beforehand, and, possibly, they directed it pursuing political goals – to possibly discredit Ukraine, justify a new wave of mobilisation and tighten the screws in general,” Alisher Ilkhamov, head of Central Asia Due Diligence, a think tank in London, told Al Jazeera.
“One just has to ask a question – who will benefit? I’m somewhat doubtful that ISIL has any serious interests in Russia,” he said.
Putin, on the other hand, does gain from the attack, Ilkhamov said. “To become a victim of ISIL is to trigger sympathies worldwide. This is some sort of a public relations [trick] to improve [Russia’s] international reputation. So, there’s a whole bunch of benefits for Putin’s regime,” he said.
“Of course, that cost the lives of his citizens – that he spits on.”
Conspiratorial as these suggestions may seem, they are rooted in what many Putin critics allege is a history of potential false flag operations used by the Russian president to strengthen his political standing.
Putin, a former spy in Germany who briefly headed the FSB, was appointed prime minister in 1999. Months later, explosions at apartment buildings killed dozens of people. The Kremlin blamed Chechen separatists and used the attacks as a pretext to start the Second Chechen War: Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed and paved the way for his first election as president in 2000.
Fugitive ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko claimed that Putin ordered the attacks. Putin repeatedly called him a “traitor,” and in 2003, Litvinenko died an agonising death in the United Kingdom after being poisoned with radioactive polonium. The UK said Putin “may have been” behind the murder.
A Russian opposition group also referred to the late 1990s to suggest that Putin’s own hand in the Moscow killings could not be ruled out.
“We remember how Putin’s regime and his special services paved the way to the Second Chechen War,” the Forum for Free Russia, an alliance of exiled opposition activists, said in a statement.
“It’s highly possible that this terrorist attack was organised by Russian special services. If it is so, then we can surely expect that the responsibility for this attack will be blamed on Ukrainians or on armed Russian opposition,” it said.
More than 133 people have been killed and more than 100 others were injured following a brazen attack on concertgoers at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall before a performance by a Soviet-era rock band on Friday.
Assailants dressed in camouflage uniforms opened fire and reportedly threw explosive devices inside the concert venue, which was left in flames with its roof collapsing after the deadly attack.
Eleven people had been detained, including four people directly involved in the armed assault, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported early on Saturday.
ISIL’s Afghan branch – also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) – has claimed responsibility for the attack and United States officials have confirmed the authenticity of that claim, according to the Reuters news agency.
Here is what we know about the group and their possible motive for the Moscow attack.
ISIL’s Afghanistan branch
The group remains one of the most active affiliates of ISIL and takes its title from an ancient caliphate in the region that once encompassed areas of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan.
The group emerged from eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and was made up of breakaway fighters of the Pakistan Taliban and local fighters who pledged allegiance to the late ISIL leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The group has since established a fearsome reputation for acts of brutality.
Murat Aslan, a military analyst and former Turkish army colonel, said ISIL’s Afghanistan affiliate is known for its “radical and tough methodologies”.
“I think their ideology inspires them in terms of selecting targets. First of all, Russia is in Syria and fighting against Daesh [ISIL] like the United States. That means they see such countries as hostile,” Aslan told Al Jazeera.
ISIL fighters who surrendered to the Afghan government are presented to the media in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, in November 2019 [Parwiz/Reuters]
“They are now in Moscow. Previously they were in Iran, and we will see much more attacks, maybe in other capitals,” he added.
Though its membership in Afghanistan is said to have declined since a peak in about 2018, its fighters still pose one of the greatest threats to the Taliban’s authority in Afghanistan.
Previous attacks by the group
ISKP fighters claimed responsibility for the 2021 attacks outside Kabul airport that left at least 175 civilians dead, killed 13 US soldiers, and many dozens injured.
The ISIL affiliate was previously blamed for carrying out a bloody attack on a maternity ward in Kabul in May 2020 that killed 24 people, including women and infants. In November that same year, the group carried out an attack on Kabul University, killing at least 22 teachers and students.
In September 2022, the group took responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul.
Last year, Iran blamed the group for two separate attacks on a major shrine in southern Shiraz – the Shah Cheragh – which killed at least 14 people and injured more than 40.
The US claimed that it intercepted communications confirming that the group was preparing to carry out attacks before coordinated suicide bombings in Iran in January this year killed nearly 100 people in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman. ISKP claimed responsibility for the Kerman attacks.
Why is ISIL attacking Russia?
Defence and security analysts say the group has targeted its propaganda at Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years over the alleged oppression of Muslims by Russia.
Amira Jadoon, assistant professor at Clemson University in South Carolina and co-author of The Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Strategic Alliances and Rivalries, said Russia is seen as a key opponent of ISIL, and Moscow has become a focus of ISKP’s “extensive propaganda war”.
“Russia’s engagement in the global fight against ISIS [ISIL] and its affiliates, especially through its military operations in Syria and its efforts to establish connections with the Afghan Taliban – ISIS-K’s rival – marks Russia as a key adversary for ISIS/ISIS-K,” Jadoon told Al Jazeera.
Syrian and Russian soldiers are seen at a checkpoint near Wafideen camp in Damascus, Syria, in March 2018 [Omar Sanadiki/Reuters]
Should the Moscow attack be “definitely attributed” to ISKP, Jadoon said, the group hopes to win support and advance “its goal to evolve into a terrorist organisation with global influence” by demonstrating that it can launch attacks within Russian territory.
“ISK [ISKP] has consistently demonstrated its ambition to evolve into a formidable regional entity … By directing its aggression towards nations such as Iran and Russia, ISK not only confronts regional heavyweights but also underscores its political relevance and operational reach on the global stage,” Jadoon said.
Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the Strategic Studies Programme of the Observer Research Foundation – a think tank based in New Delhi, India – told Al Jazeera that Russia is seen by ISIL and its affiliates as “a crusading power against Muslims”.
“Russia has been a target for ISIS and not just ISKP from the beginning,” Taneja, author of the book The ISIS Peril, said.
“ISKP attacked [the] Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022, and over the months Russian security agencies have upped their efforts to clamp down on pro-ISIS [pro-ISIL] ecosystems both in Russia and around its borders, specifically Central Asia and the Caucusus,” he said.
In early March, Russia’s Federal Security Service, better known as the FSB, said it had thwarted an ISIL plan to attack a Moscow synagogue.
ISIL and Russia have also long been enemies in other battlefields, such as Syria, where Moscow’s airpower and support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime were critical in pushing back gains made by ISIL fighters in the early years of the civil war. Russian forces have also been accused by rights groups and other opposition fronts in Syria of carrying out abuses and excesses against civilians through their bombing campaigns.
Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM jet fighters landing on a runway at the Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia, October 3, 2015 [File: Komsomolskaya Pravda/Alexander Kots/AFP]
Moscow’s close relations with Israel are also anathema to ISIL’s ideology, Taneja said.
“So this friction is not new ideologically, but is so tactically,” he told Al Jazeera.
There’s another factor too: Largely away from the world’s attention, the armed group has regrouped into a formidable force after setbacks in Syria and Iran.
“ISKP in Afghanistan has grown in strength significantly … and it’s not just ISKP, ISIS in its original regions of operations, Syria and Iraq, also sees [an] uptick in operational capabilities,” Taneja said. Today, he added, it is “ideologically powerful even if not politically, tactically or strategically … that powerful any more”.
That poses a challenge for a distracted world, he said.
“How to combat this is the big question at a time when big power competition and global geopolitical churn has put counterterrorism on the back burner,” Taneja added.
Firefighters walk near the Crocus City Hall concert venue following Friday’s deadly attack, outside Moscow, Russia [Sergei Vedyashkin/Moscow News Agency/Handout via Reuters]
ISKP social media channels are “jubilant” following the attack on Moscow, said Abdul Basit, a senior associate fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.
“They are celebrating the attack,” Basit told Al Jazeera, adding that supporters are “translating and recirculating the responsibility claim” issued by the ISIL-linked Amaq News Agency.
Basit said that ISIL’s method of operations involve amplifying a propaganda campaign in advance of large-scale attacks and this had been observed in recent anti-Russian messaging. Such attacks “add to the credibility” of armed groups, Basit explained, which then “increases the scope of their funding, recruitment and propaganda”.
More attacks are possible in Russia and elsewhere, he added, given the key role that ISIL recruits of Central Asian origin – particularly Tajiks – played when the group held territory in Syria. They have now returned to the Central Asia region and their intent to carry out attacks has now materialised in capability, Basit said.
Previous attacks in Russia
Moscow and other Russian cities have been the targets of previous attacks.
In 2002, Chechen fighters took more than 900 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, the Dubrovka, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and an end to Russia’s war on the region.
Russian special forces attacked the theatre to end the standoff and 130 people were killed, most suffocated by a gas used by security forces to leave the Chechen fighters unconscious.
The deadliest attack in Russia was the 2004 Beslan school siege which was carried out by members of a Chechen armed group seeking Chechnya’s independence from Russia. The siege killed 334 people, including 186 children.
At least 12 others wounded in blast that targeted a group of people waiting outside a bank in city centre.
At least three people have been killed and 12 others wounded in a suicide bombing in front of a bank in Afghanistan’s Kandahar city, according to local police and officials.
The ISIL (ISIS) group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack on its Telegram channel.
The explosion at around 8:00am (03:30 GMT) targeted a group of people waiting outside the New Kabul Bank branch in central Kandahar city.
Local police and Taliban officials said three people were killed and 12 were wounded. A source at a major hospital in the southern city said the toll was much higher, the AFP news agency reported.
“Mirwais Hospital has received 20 people killed since this morning from the explosion,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal for speaking to the media.
Inamullah Samangani, director of information and culture of Kandahar province, said the bank was busy with people collecting their salaries when the explosion went off.
“Commonly our compatriots gather there to collect their salaries,” he said, adding that the “victims were civilians”.
One of the victims, Khalil Ahmad, a father of eight in his 40s, had gone to the bank to get his salary, his nephew said at his funeral later Thursday.
“He was just an ordinary, simple guy; he used to work as a painter,” Mohammad Shafiq Saraaj said, as Ahmad’s relatives gathered around his body wrapped in a white cloth for burial.
“Such incidents used to happen under the previous government … and now it is happening as well,” Saraaj said.
“We beg for security to be properly maintained in the country and especially in crowded places, and that our nation be saved from this kind of tragedy.”
‘Under control’
In the aftermath of the explosion, Taliban authorities surrounded the area outside the bank and did not allow media workers to approach the site.
Samangani said on Thursday morning that “the situation is under control” at one of the city’s hospitals where the wounded were transported, denying there was an urgent need for blood donations as had been circulated on social media.
“There is no such issue, and the wounded people are not in serious condition; they have superficial injuries,” he said in a message to journalists.
Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada lives in Kandahar, the second-largest city in the country.
The number of bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has markedly declined since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, ousting the United States-backed government.
However, a number of armed groups – including the regional chapter of ISIL – remain a threat.
Several explosions have been reported around Afghanistan since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on March 11, but few have been confirmed by Taliban officials.
The US Charge d’Affaires for Afghanistan, Karen Decker, condemned “all acts of terror” in a post on X, offering condolences to the families of the victims.
“Afghans should be able to observe Ramadan peacefully & without fear,” she said.
The regional chapter of ISIL has a history of targeting Shia Muslims who it considers heretics, but is also a rival of the Taliban.
Currently, about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition that was formed in 2014.
The United States and Iraq have held a first round of talks on the future of US and other foreign troops in the country, with Baghdad expecting discussions to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as well as top-ranking officials from both the Iraqi armed forces and the US-led coalition met in Baghdad on Saturday.
The joint commission began “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the Coalition in Iraq”, Al-Sudani said in a statement.
“Military experts will oversee ending the military mission of the Global Coalition against Daesh [ISIL], a decade after its initiation and after its successful achievement of its mission in partnership with Iraqi security and military forces,” he added.
Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition that was formed in 2014.
The US says its aims to set up a committee to negotiate the terms of the mission’s end were first discussed last year.
But as Israel’s war on Gaza ramps up, US forces in Iraq and Syria have faced frequent attacks by Iran-allied groups, resulting in US retaliatory attacks and Iraqi complaints of US “aggression” against its territory.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani at the first session of negotiations between Iraq and the US on the future of foreign troops in Iraq [Hadi Mizban/Pool via Reuters]
Since ISIL lost its hold on Iraq, officials have called for the withdrawal of coalition forces, especially after a US air strike in January 2020 killed Iranian top commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside Baghdad airport.
Iraqi officials have complained that the US attacks violate its sovereignty.
On Thursday, Washington said it agreed with Baghdad on the launch of “expert working groups of military and defence professionals” as part of the joint commission.
The three working groups would investigate “the level of threat posed by ISIS [ISIL], operational and environmental requirements, and strengthening the growing capabilities of the Iraqi security forces”, al-Sudani’s office said.
US Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrin Singh also acknowledged that the US military footprint in the Arab country “will certainly be part of the conversations as it goes forward”.
While the US has said the decision to discuss withdrawal from Iraq was decided upon before October 7, ISIL in Iraq took credit for the decision and said in a statement that it “proves that the Americans only understand the language of force” and promised to continue its attacks.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says talks will take place as part of a military commission that was agreed upon in August 2023.
The United States and Iraq have agreed to start talks on the future of the US-led military coalition in Iraq with the aim of setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops and the coalition’s end, both governments have announced.
The US has had a continuous presence in Iraq since its 2003 invasion.
US combat forces left in 2011, but thousands of troops returned in 2014 to help the Iraqi government defeat ISIL (ISIS).
In the years since, the presence of US forces, who have remained there to conduct counter-ISIL missions and training, has been a lightning rod for an increasingly influential faction of Iran-aligned militias and politicians in Iraq.
Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement on Thursday said Baghdad aims to “formulate a specific and clear timetable that specifies the duration of the presence of international coalition advisors in Iraq” and to “initiate the gradual and deliberate reduction of its advisors on Iraqi soil”, eventually leading to the end of the coalition mission.
It added that Iraq is committed to ensuring the “safety of the international coalition’s advisors during the negotiation period in all parts of the country” and to “maintaining stability and preventing escalation”.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the discussions will take place as part of a higher military commission that was agreed upon in August 2023 – before the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7 rocked the region – and will discuss the “transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between Iraq and the United States”.
Iraq’s government says ISIL is defeated and the coalition’s job is over, but it is keen to explore establishing bilateral relations with coalition members, including military cooperation in training and equipment.
Iraq also says the coalition’s presence has become a magnet for instability amid near-daily attacks by Iran-backed armed groups on bases housing the forces and US retaliatory strikes, escalating since the Israeli war in Gaza started.
US and Iraqi officials say the process is expected to take many months if not longer, with the outcome unclear and no withdrawal of US forces imminent.
Washington fears that a fast withdrawal may create a security vacuum that could be filled by archrival Iran or ISIL, which maintains sleeper cells in desert areas and has continued low-level attacks despite holding no territory.
The suspects were allegedly planning to carry out attacks on synagogues and churches.
Turkey has announced it has detained dozens of people suspected of having ties to the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.
At least 29 suspects were arrested in “Operation Heroes-37” on Friday, news agencies reported. The detentions come amid a drive by Turkey’s security forces ahead of New Year festivities, although some also view it as part of a political push ahead of local elections.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X that the detentions had thwarted planned attacks on churches and synagogues in Istanbul.
DEAŞ Terör Örgütüne yönelik İstanbul merkezli 9️⃣ ilde düzenlenen “KAHRAMANLAR-37” Operasyonunda 2️⃣9️⃣ Şahıs Yakalandı❗ ️ Terör Örgütleri ve onların İş Birlikçileriyle mücadelemiz kararlılıkla devam edecek❗ ️ ❌MİT Başkanlığı ile Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü İstihbarat Başkanlığı ve… pic.twitter.com/xfu2gbrKT1
According to Turkish state news agency Anadolu, the suspects included three alleged senior ISIL fighters. It added that plans also included an attack on the Iraqi Embassy in Ankara.
Despite the group having been largely defeated, some ISIL fighters remain in hiding in remote areas of Syria and Iraq, from which they continue to carry out attacks.
Turkey continues to be targeted and has been hit by a string of deadly bombings. An attack in Istanbul on January 1, 2017 killed 39 people in a nightclub during New Year celebrations.
Turkish authorities have also ramped up operations against Kurdish fighters in recent weeks, after they detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on October 1.
“For the peace, unity and solidarity of our nation, we will not tolerate any terrorists,” Yerlikaya said on X.
“We will continue our fight uninterruptedly with the superior efforts of our security forces.”
However, there is also suspicion that the drive may also be influenced by upcoming local elections in March.
Analysts say that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is keen to win back control of Istanbul, Ankara and other major economic hubs that his AK Party has lost.
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