Moscow Terror Attack: Are Extremist Groups on the Rise?

On March 22nd, only days after the conclusion of the Russian presidential elections, a terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall drew attention to Russian domestic security and intelligence operations. After such a large-scale and deadly attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Western counterparts will be both dealing with some difficult questions in the weeks to come.

A concert hall in the north of Moscow, Crocus City Hall, was the site of a brutal terrorist attack that has, at the time of writing, killed 133 Russian civilians, including multiple children, and injured many more. Moments before the beginning of a music concert, four men began shooting and throwing projectiles into the concert hall. As civilians fled and emergency services arrived, the building caught on fire, later collapsing.

Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by the Islamic terrorist group ‘Islamic State Khorasan Province’ (ISKP), a branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The four men, rumored to be Tajik nationals, were the subject of a national manhunt after fleeing the scene and were apprehended by police in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders both Belarus and Ukraine. Russian state media and authorities allege that the attackers were attempting to cross the international border into Ukraine, potentially with the help of the Ukrainian government, despite no evidence of any Ukrainian connection. Ukraine has denied any involvement in the recent attack.

In statements since the attack, the US has said that they had advance warning of ISKP’s intentions—which the US intelligence community attempted to share with Russia under the ‘duty to warn’ policy. This policy, adopted in 2015, requires agencies composing the US Intelligence Community to warn others about potential lethal threats. Additionally, the US and UK released notices to their respective citizens in Russia warning them to avoid large gatherings, such as concerts. Each of these warnings was reportedly treated with suspicion by Moscow, with Putin calling the warnings “provocative” and “blackmail” just last week.

This large-scale terrorist attack should concern American policymakers. In March, Russian officials announced that they had disrupted multiple plots by similarly-affiliated groups, suggesting an increase in regional terrorist activity. If this is true, and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow was undertaken by ISKP, it is important for the US to consider the role it may have accidentally played. It is likely that, since pulling out of Afghanistan in 2021, a decreased US presence in the region has allowed terrorist groups to regain power and influence, potentially including capabilities to plan and carry out long-range terror attacks. In the future, this may be seen not only through examples such as the governance of the Taliban in Afghanistan but also an increase in large-scale terrorist attacks across the globe.