On 22 March, a group of gunmen entered the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, where a music concert by the rock group “Picnic” was taking place. The terrorists shot the guests with automatic weapons and then fled in a car. According to Russian reports, 152 people were injured in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall and 133 were killed. In Moscow hospitals were taken 107 victims, including three children. It became the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege.
In the evening, at approximately 08:00 Moscow time, the terrorists pulled up to the Crocus City shopping centre in a Renault Symbol car. Nearly at the entrance, they opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles and Saiga carbines (a hunting version of the Kalashnikov). The terrorists used double magazines bound with duct tape so that they would not have to reload their weapons for a long time. After shooting people standing in the entrance queue and unarmed guards, the militants switched to the spectators in the lobby. Fifteen minutes later, the terrorists reached the auditorium and continued the killings. By using lighter fluid, the terrorists set fire to the auditorium, dropped their weapons and ammunition, changed their clothes and left the scene of the crime in the same Renault Symbol. They left Crocus City Hall, mingling with people in the crowd of those fleeing.
In the morning, the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Moscow were found in the Bryansk region near the village of Khatsun in the Karachev district on a section of the M-3 “Ukraine” motorway 100 kilometres from the Russian-Ukrainian border. The terrorists disregarded a demand to stop, and during the pursuit the car was fired upon and overturned. Two people in the car were detained on the spot. The remaining two fled into the forest, where they were also apprehended by Russian security forces. The four men were all natives of Tajikistan who had previously travelled to Russia. According to the Federal Security Service, seven other people were their accomplices.
In an address to Russian citizens, Vladimir Putin said that the terrorists “tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
Ukrainian officials and media said that the terrorists could have travelled not towards Ukraine but towards Belarus. However, an examination of the place of detention shows that from there the direct road leads only to Ukraine, while they had already passed the turn to Bryansk (and further on to Belarus’ Gomel). In the south-west of the Bryansk region, on the border with Ukraine, in the area of terrorist detention, there is a wooded area that was previously actively used by the Russian and Ukrainian sides for the transfer of sabotage groups. Through this area groups of special forces from both sides used to pass into enemy territory; today it is more complicated to accomplish this.
WORLD REACTION
The world community almost unanimously condemned the terrorist attack in Moscow. Reuters immediately reported that the organisers of the attack were the Islamist radical group ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K. The social networks sparked debates over the fact the terrorist organisation had not claimed responsibility for the attack, while screenshots from the radical group’s social networks that appeared on the Internet turned out to be fake and may even have used outdated post design.
Russia rejected the version that the terrorist attack was carried out by ISIS-K and accused Ukraine and the Western bloc of its organisation. It is essential to mention that not only the countries of the global South condemned the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk and supported Russia, but also key countries of the Western Hemisphere, including the US, the UK and EU countries, who are well acquainted with the problem of terrorism. The UN also formally condemned the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk. Only Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the sole person who spoke out against it, accusing Russia of unfounded accusations.
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić recalled that the US and British intelligence services were aware of the terrorist attacks being prepared in Moscow. The Independent writes that on 7 March, the US embassy in Moscow urged all American citizens to leave Russia urgently, without giving any details about the nature of the threat. Meanwhile, it said that people should avoid concerts and crowds and keep a close eye on their environment.
Most notably, the press almost directly placed the blame for the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk on the Russian authorities. The Economist reminded that Western countries warned Moscow a fortnight ago about possible terrorist attacks, but Vladimir Putin decided to ignore the West’s warnings “during his annual address to his most senior spies on March 19th.” Apart from Putin, the magazine accused the Russians of the incident. The magazine stated there is a strong nationalist movement in the country and inter-ethnic tensions are growing.
The Economist concludes unequivocally that Ukraine was not involved in the attack and proves it by questions of rationality. “The reality is that it would be an act of pure insanity for Ukraine to attempt anything of the sort. Killing civilians would be a sure way to alienate the Western supporters on whom Ukraine so heavily depends.”
Key supporters of Kyiv also stood up for Ukraine. The White House stated that there is no evidence that Ukraine or Ukrainians participated in the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk. Ukraine’s other partners spoke in a similar manner. Realising the horror of the tragedy, each of them said that it was impossible that Kyiv was involved in it. Nonetheless, despite the tragic nature of the events of the past two years in Ukraine, there is a certain collision in the words of Western leaders that is worth mentioning. Among Kyiv’s partners, it is not customary to bring up the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, where civilians were killed along with military journalist Maxim Fomin), the murder of Daria Dugina in Moscow (for both of which Ukraine’s GUR took responsibility), the New Year’s Eve shelling of Belgorod’s central square, when 25 people were killed, the daily strikes on Donetsk in the Donetsk region, and so forth. One cannot accuse anyone without evidence, but one cannot deliberately forget the facts and draw explicit conclusions either.
UKRAINE’S INTERNATIONAL LEGION
After the outbreak of a full-fledged conflict in Ukraine, Kyiv created an “International Legion” within the Ukrainian Armed Forces, where citizens of other countries could join and fight against Russia. They include, among others, purely Islamist groups such as the Khamzat Gelayev Battalion, the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion (leader of the separatist movement in Russian Chechnya in the 90s), the Imam Shamil Battalion, the Turan Unit and the Sheikh Mansur Battalion. The majority of their soldiers come from radical Islamist groups in the Caucasus who fled Russia after being defeated by the Russian forces in the late 90s.
Ukraine has been actively using them in its media strategy. Recently, for instance, a soldier of the so-called “Ichkerian battalion” of Abdulkhakim Shishani (“Ichkeria” is the separatist name for Chechnya) confessed in a video from the Russian-Ukrainian border region that he was following the path of Shamil Basayev. Basayev is a hero of Caucasian radicals who organised a large series of terrorist attacks in Russia, most famously the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, the Dubrovka attack and the Beslan school takeover.
The information provided above is taken from official Ukrainian sources. According to some media reports, the active usage of Islamist radicals, which includes their groups from Syria and Iraq (for example, the Jabhat al-Shamiyah Brigade), looks rather controversial against the background of the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk.
AIMS
Putting aside all hypotheses about the real organiser of the attack in Krasnogorsk, what aims could the terrorists have pursued?
Apparently, one of their aims was an attempt to sow anti-Islamic sentiments in Russian society. Russia is a very multinational country, where a large number of different faiths live side by side. In a video published on the Internet from the chest camera of one of the terrorists, they can be heard shouting takbir – the Islamic exaltation of Allah with the words “Allahu Akbar” – during the murder. Therefore, according to the idea of the organisers, it might divide the Russian people in religious terms.
Tajikistan natives can be used for political speculation and subsequent destabilisation within Russia. The factor of migrant Muslims from Central Asia can be used to inflame anti-immigrant sentiments.
In this context, it also becomes curious that the plan of the terrorists’ withdrawal from the Moscow region can make Kyiv alone the centre of the terrorist attacks, since the terrorists were going directly towards the Ukrainian border. Perhaps the plan may be intended to prevent the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from reaching the path of negotiations. As an example, in the autumn of 2023, Davyd Arakhamia, the head of the ruling Ukrainian political force Servant of the People, said in an interview that the breakdown of negotiations between the two countries in Istanbul was the fault of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged Ukraine to abandon negotiations and “start fighting.”
RELATED PARTS
In connection with the described events, it is also worth recalling a number of publications by Arab journalists concerning the future of a number of fundamental Islamist groups after the defeat of ISIS. Prior to the withdrawal of the US military contingent from Afghanistan in 2018, the opposition National Alliance of Tajikistan (recognised as an extremist organisation in Tajikistan in 2019) was formed in Warsaw, which included the remnants of Tajik militants who escaped after the defeat of ISIS in the Middle East, according to journalists. According to unverified information, the Alliance may have been tacitly organised by the British side. It was headed by Mukhiddin Kabirov, a friend of the scandalous ex-commander of Tajikistan’s riot police, Gulmurod Halimov. In May 2015, Gulmurod Khalimov published a video message announcing his joining the Islamic State.
Arab media reported that the point of creating the National Alliance of Tajikistan seemed to be to offset the consequences of the fact that the supporters of the Western coalition were losing the war in Syria. In order to achieve this, it sought to organise the traffic of those wishing to join Syrian Islamist groups from Tajikistan. The alliance became a kind of transit organisation under outside influence. Kabirov and Halimov were responsible for recruiting volunteers.
Back to Ukraine and its International Legion it is appropriate to recall the already mentioned Jabhat al-Shamiyah Brigade. One of its detachments, previously operating in the neighbourhood of Aleppo in Syria, is led by a field commander with the call sign Shusha (Tajik by nationality, Khalimov’s right-hand man). Jabhat al-Shamiyah is sponsored from external sources through the National Alliance of Tajikistan.
According to Arab journalists, in late October 2023, fugitive Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, the head of the Russian Volunteer Corps within the International Legion, and Mukhiddin Kabirov met in London. Further, after a series of meetings were recorded in Warsaw.
Russian Volunteer Corps is publicly responsible for the organisation of attacks on Russian population centres in Belgorod and Kursk regions. The last attacks of the RVC on Russian territory occurred less than a week before the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk.
Presumably, the centres overseeing radical proxy forces in the world are demonstrating an attempt to act as a united force front against Russia. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ unsuccessful attempt to conduct an autumn-summer offensive in 2023, in which a large amount of money was invested, demonstrated the fact that Russia cannot be defeated militarily. The increasing proxy pressure on Moscow may be a consequence of this.
Furthermore, the events in Krasnogorsk might have shown the rift between Ukraine’s main supporters in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Ukrainian issue has become too poisonous for the Democrat team in Washington on the eve of the presidential election. Hence the problems with the adoption of a new $60 billion military aid package and restrained rhetoric regarding the outcome of the conflict. A decrease in tension around the Ukrainian issue could also have an impact on the Democrats’ election campaign.
As stated earlier, on the eve of the terrorist attack, the US attempted to warn Moscow without giving more specific details. Russia’s reaction became extremely radical, which is what the ultimate beneficiary might have aimed for.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Bill Galston for Head-Post.com
