A series of security failures in counterterrorism efforts, combined with unfounded conspiracy theories accusing Ukraine and the U.S. of facilitating terrorist attacks, have hindered Russia’s ability to fully comprehend and uncover the ideological motivations behind recent incidents.
Notable examples include the deadly Crocus City Hall attack by the Tajik wing of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) in March and the violent assaults on two Jewish synagogues, two Orthodox Christian churches, and a police station by extremists in June in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.
In response, Russia pointed the finger at Western intelligence services for allegedly inciting post-Soviet Islamist extremists to destabilize the country from within. Russia’s unfounded accusations primarily serve to consolidate ultranationalist, military-patriotic, and Russian chauvinist forces amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
This strategy has resulted in systemic failures for Russian intelligence in identifying, infiltrating, and dismantling potential Islamist extremist cells concealed within the multi-million-strong Central Asian and Caucasian migrant communities. Moreover, the simplistic accusation that ISKP is purportedly “collaborating with the Kafir West” obstructs Russian intelligence and religious experts from comprehending and uncovering the fundamental ideological motivations and underlying reasons driving terrorism both within and beyond its borders.
Three months after the ISKP Crocus City Hall attack, which resulted in 145 fatalities and over 551 injuries among concertgoers, the Russian Investigative Committee has yet to present convincing evidence to support President Vladimir Putin’s and FSB head Aleksandr Bortnikov’s accusations of Ukrainian and U.S. involvement in the incident. Although the Kremlin’s accusations against the West were widely propagated by Russia’s pro-war political elite, pro-government media, and national chauvinist bloggers, the Islamic State sought to exploit the brutal Moscow attack to assert its sole responsibility and to reinforce its hardline Salafi-Jihadi ideology.
The Islamic State’s triumphant propaganda campaign following the Crocus City Hall massacre perversely and categorically rejected Russia’s attempts to “take away” its “glory.” The official Islamic State Amaq News Agency issued four statements via Telegram on March 23-24, detailing all the actions of the attackers with photos and videos, claiming and confirming its sole authorship of the attack.
Even the staunchest enemies of the Islamic State, including Central Asian and Caucasian Salafi-Jihadi groups affiliated with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have treated the Russian conspiracy theory with disdain.
Jamaat Ansarullah (JA), Katibat al-Tawhid wal Jihad (KTJ), Katibat al-Guraba (KG), Ajnad al-Kavkaz (AK), and Liwa al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (LMA), which vie with the Uzbek and Tajik wings of ISKP for global jihadi leadership, have not acknowledged or endorsed the Russian conspiracy theory. Indeed, Russia’s accusation of cooperation between Tajik ISKP militants, who consider themselves “warriors of Allah,” and Western intelligence is an affront to such groups.
On the contrary, the brutal torture of the Tajik militants by Russian security forces, including the cutting off of one man’s ear, has provoked compassion and anger among both pro-ISKP supporters in Central Asia and pro-al Qaida Uzbek, Tajik, and Russian language jihadi media, uniting them in a common front against Russia.
Sheikh Abu Muhammad Madani, a highly influential Tajik scholar known for his Khutbah speeches, essays, and fatwas that have significantly shaped the ideological complexion of pro-Islamic State Salafi jihadism, accused Russia of orchestrating the Crocus Hall massacre. He claimed that the Russian FSB staged the spectacle of mass murder, falsely implicating four Tajik nationals.
Another pro-HTS Tajik Salafi-Jihadi propagandist, Faruk Shami, who founded the Sunni Jihadi media school in Idlib, Syria, accused Russia of orchestrating the Moscow “false-flag” attack, too. He presented ten arguments claiming that the Russian FSB “sacrificed” four innocent Tajik migrants, who neither spoke Russian nor had means of defending themselves, as the perpetrators of the terrorist attack.
Notably, the FSB’s harsh treatment of the Tajik suspects, rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Russia, and Putin’s nationalist imperial ideology have driven hardline and moderate Salafists to temporarily set aside their factional disputes and intensify their anti-Russia propaganda with renewed vigor. While the Kremlin’s accusations that the West masterminded the attack on Crocus City Hall have rallied Russia’s pro-war political elite around Putin and bolstered the country’s nationalist-patriotic agenda amid its aggressive war in Ukraine, it has also led these groups to target Putin directly.
Propaganda Warfare: ISKP’s Counter to Putin’s Claims
On March 25, 2024, ISKP’s Al-Azaim Foundation published a poster in Russian, Tajik, Uzbek, and English, threatening a gruesome massacre against all Russians, including Vladimir Putin, in retaliation for the torture of its four Tajik fighters. This was a direct public confrontation with Putin himself in response to his accusations that the Islamic State serves Western interests. ISKP explicitly demanded that Putin “stop torturing IS captives.” The poster, which was widely distributed on Central Asian Salafi media, promised revenge for the brutal treatment of the Tajik fighters.
The more the Kremlin tries to shift its failure to identify, uncover, and dismantle Salafi extremist groups onto others, the more aggressively ISKP spreads anti-Russian propaganda, combining various elements of Islamic State ideology – from the religious rejection of Russian Crusaders to condemning the venality of Central Asian Taghut (idolater) states.
Continuing its ideological dispute with Russia, ISKP published an editorial “Bear Bewildered” in the 34th issue of its Voice of Khorasan magazine, lauding the “Tajik Mujahideen’s heroic raid in Moscow that destroyed the pride of the Infidel Forces.” The editorial mocked Putin’s “conspiracy theories, which were washed away by the blood of nearly 500 Crusaders.” The Islamic State relished debating the Kremlin, accusing it of constantly seeking excuses to evade the truth.
A thorough analysis of pro-Islamic State Russian, Tajik, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek language Telegram channels reveal that since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, ISKP has effectively exploited anti-Russian sentiment among Central Asian migrants discontented with the Kremlin’s anti-immigration, chauvinistic pro-war policies. As a result, ISKP actively seeks to recruit disaffected hardline Salafi migrants who feel humiliated by the restrictive immigration laws and religious persecution from ethnic Russian nationalists and chauvinistic forces. Initial interrogations and the migration backgrounds of the four Crocus City attackers revealed that they had been radicalized and targeted by ISKP within the labor migration environments in Russia and Turkey.
Unveiling the Ideological Roots: From Rostov Hostages to Dagestan Attacks
The post-Crocus ISKP terror activity in Rostov-on-Don, along with the attacks by Salafi militants on two Orthodox church, two synagogues, and law enforcement officers in Dagestan, undermined Putin and Bortnikov’s conspiracy theories implicating Ukraine and the West.
On June 16, 2024, six detainees at the detention center in Rostov-on-Don took two staff members hostage. They immediately identified themselves as Islamic State mujahideen, displayed the group’s black flag, and wore headbands with Arabic script. The hostage-takers recorded two videos outlining their demands for a car, weapons, and an unhindered escape path from the country. The videos revealed that all of them had been long-standing Islamic State members. In 2023, three of the attackers – Shamil Akiev, Tamerlan Gireev, and Azamat Tsutskiev – had been sentenced to 18 years in prison for an Islamic State terror act. During the raid that brought the incident to an end, five militants were killed, one was injured, and both hostages were freed.
This incident exposed the Russian penitentiary system’s failures in monitoring, identifying, and combating Jihadi-Salafi ideology. Russia’s penal colonies and pretrial detention centers remain recruiting grounds for Islamic State and al-Qaida-linked groups alike.
The following week, on June 23, 2024, Caucasian Salafi militants in Dagestan launched coordinated assaults on two Orthodox churches, two synagogues, and law enforcement officers. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the attacks resulted in 20 fatalities, including 15 police officers, and 46 injuries.
The attackers did not explicitly declare allegiance to the Islamic State or al-Qaida. However, judging by the tactics of the highly organized operation targeting only law enforcement officers and non-Muslim temples of worship, it is evident they followed the strategy of North Caucasian separatist Jihadi-Salafi groups. Unlike the Islamic State and al-Qaida, North Caucasian Salafi militants tend to avoid targeting local populations, focusing instead on conducting precise attacks against law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges serving the “Kafir Russian government.”
In contrast, the indiscriminate killing of over 140 civilians at the Crocus City Hall concert aligns perfectly with the Islamic State’s Takfiri ideology, which targets both civilians in Dar al-Kafir (the land of unbelief) and inhabitants of Muslim taghut countries, as well as mushrikun (polytheist) and munafiks (hypocrites).
The attacks on churches and synagogues in Makhachkala and Derbent began almost simultaneously and were strategically timed to coincide with the Orthodox Christian holiday of Pentecost, the Day of Holy Trinity. The attackers spray-painted “2:120” and “8:39” on the synagogue gates in black paint, referencing Quranic verses: “The Jews and Christians will not be pleased with you until you follow their religion” and “Fight them until there is no temptation and worship is entirely for Allah.”
Instead of uncovering the ideological motivations behind the attack and understanding the religious mindset of Dagestani Salafi militants, the pro-Kremlin political community and pro-war chauvinistic ultra-nationalist bloggers once again, without evidence, accused the U.S. of attempting to break the North Caucasus from Russia.
Domestic Roots of Terrorism: How Russia’s Immigration Policies Fuel Salafi Jihadism
The political, socioeconomic, and religious factors driving the radicalization of Central Asian and Caucasian Muslims in Russia are clearly domestic, rather than influenced by the West. The Kremlin’s ideology exerts oppressive pressure on the Muslim minority. This environment, characterized by religious insults, pushes Central Asian migrants trapped in poverty and persecution toward hardline Salafi Jihadism, leading them to undertake hijrah (migration) to Turkey, Syria, and Afghanistan to join ISKP, HTS, or al-Qaida.
Many Central Asian Muslims view the course newly developed by Russia’s Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs (FAEN), aimed at integrating Central Asian migrant workers, as an affront to their religious sensibilities. The course, piloted in the Kaliningrad, Moscow, Perm, Krasnodar, and Yakutia regions, deems “open displays of religious belief in public are deemed unacceptable, including the performance of religious rites on the street and the conduct of Namaz in public spaces.” It also explicitly categorizes animal sacrifices as “unacceptable,” a stipulation that could potentially lead to the prohibition of the principal Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.
The course stipulates that addressing individuals as “brother” or “sister” is “inappropriate” unless they are relatives or close acquaintances. These religious “restrictions” stand in stark contrast to the Islamic Ummah concept, which recognize all believers as brothers and sisters, transcending distinctions of nationality, region, or race. Furthermore, the course advises against discussing passersby or whispering in one’s native language in the presence of others. The FAEN document details the controversial expedited procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship by enlisting in the military to fight in Ukraine, which hardline Salafists regard as “an alien war between two Kafir states.”
Putin’s regime has expelled from the country not only the liberal intelligentsia, political opposition, and independent media under the discriminatory Foreign Agents Law, but also prominent imams, theologians, Salafi clerics, and Islamic scholars. Influential and controversial Russian-speaking Salafi preachers Abdullah Kosteksky, Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, Abakar Abakarov and Ali Charinsky were expelled from Russia’s religious sphere for endorsing terrorism, and their online Khutbahs now significantly shape the growth of the underground Salafi separatist movement in the Caucasus.
In July 2023, aggressive police raids on mosques during Friday prayers in Kotelniki and Dzerzhinsk near Moscow, involving rude interruptions of the prayer service, the detention of migrants during worship, and the brazen trampling of the Jaynamaz (prayer mat) with shoes, deeply insulted Central Asian and North Caucasian believers. The incidents, seen as a severe affront to Muslims, led to the detention and deportation of about 60 migrant workers who protested police lawlessness. Such degrading treatment, violations of Islamic sacred spaces, and xenophobic pressures from Russian nationalists propel Central Asian migrants toward religious radicalism.
Often, accommodating and fawning imams with pro-Kremlin khutbahs and fatwas inadvertently incite anti-Moscow sentiment among Central Asian migrants and Caucasian Muslims. While the Dagestani Muftiate’s recent fatwa banning the niqab was broadly endorsed by other religious communities, it faced strong condemnation from devout Muslim parties, further radicalizing Salafists. The inability to patiently work with Salafist followers and thoroughly address their jihadi ideology, combined with the FSB’s scorched earth counterinsurgency tactics and the pro-Kremlin politicization of Islam, paradoxically renders Russia vulnerable to attacks by global terror groups.
In conclusion, rather than attributing its counterterrorism failures to the U.S., Russia should address the internal factors that humiliate Muslims in Russia and drive Central Asian migrants toward Salafi-Jihadi global terror groups. There are many former migrant workers, now resolute Salafi fighters inspired by the Islamic State’s Takfiri ideology and committed to defending their religion. They are fervently motivated to launch repeated attacks against “Crusader Russia” – and they don’t need the West to push them into it, Moscow provides its own motivation.