Why are there numerous terrorist attacks again in Russia after six years of calm?

Previous attacks

Last year, on October 29, a local mob carrying Palestinian flags stormed Makhachkala International Airport and reached the tarmac to search for Israeli passengers who they believed were on a flight from Tel Aviv. Several people, including police officers, were injured in the attack. Earlier, locals had laid siege to a hotel in the city, searching for Israeli guests. Strong anti-Israel public sentiment had been building in Dagestan for some time, and on that day a popular Telegram channel had spread the news of a direct flight from Tel Aviv. The June 23 attacks also appear to have been driven by the same public sentiment. This time, the terrorists attacked intended targets.

Historically, the three predominantly Muslim republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia in the North Caucasus have long been centres of separatist resistance. The insurgencies became more intense in the 1990s and early 2000s, especially by Chechen groups, which carried out more than 27 suicide attacks on military bases, subways and aircraft in the early 2000s. Rock concertsetc. throughout the region and other parts of Russia.

Around 2007, an al-Qaeda (AQ)-affiliated group called Emarat Kavkaz emerged in the region. It carried out several suicide attacks in Russian cities, including the bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. The UN designated the group as affiliated with AQ in 2011, and stated that the group had cells in Europe in addition to close ties to Central Asian terrorist groups and the Chechen separatist movement. Starting in 2012, with the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, thousands of people from the North Caucasus and Central Asia were either recruited or voluntarily brought to the “caliphate.” Some of these people also defected to AQ’s Syrian branch – the Al-Nusra Front (ANF), now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which continues to hold territory in the region.

Russia became a target of both ISIS and AQ because it actively supported the Assad regime’s forces against HTS and ISIS and coordinated its air campaign against ISIS in Syria with the US-led coalition until 2017. ISIS bombed a Russian plane flying from Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt to St. Petersburg in 2015, killing over 200 passengers. In 2017, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a St. Petersburg subway. A group called Katiba-al-Imam-Shamil, allegedly an AQ affiliate from the North Caucasus, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Terror returns

Interestingly, Russia officially declared an end to the armed uprisings in the North Caucasus in 2017 and has since been able to prevent major attacks on the homeland. How should the attacks in Russia be assessed in 2024 after a six-year break?

The attackers used different methods in the Moscow and Dagestan attacks. In the Moscow attack, mercenaries with little or no combat experience but who were capable of indiscriminate shooting in a public place were recruited through social media. They did not have to stay behind to take on security forces; instead, they had a plan to escape. At first glance, the attack was aimed at mobilizing public sentiment against the state. After the shooters were caught near the Ukrainian border and based on their interviews and phone forensics, Ukraine was accused of masterminding the attack, while social media accounts linked to ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Officials in Dagestan have admitted that locals, including relatives of a senior official, were involved in the attacks. The coordinated attacks suggest advance planning by a well-trained network. Although social media has attributed the attacks to Wilayat Kavkaz, the claim has so far been proven untrue. Investigators are looking into the role of a popular social media influencer in the attacks, most likely to radicalize. However, the message of the attacks is consistent with strong public sentiment about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.

Russia thus faces threats from local Islamist networks as well as social media-directed attacks by foreign-based “henchmen” who may be linked to remnants of ISIS or al-Qaeda. While it would be easier for Russia to track down local networks and contain radicalization, it would be much more difficult to get to the masterminds of externally directed attacks. Aside from the anonymity and complex operational planning of such operations, the near-non-existent cooperation with the US-led West in the field of counterterrorism would also be an obstacle. It is worth noting that cooperation with the West had been declining long before the Ukraine war, as noted in the 2017 US Counterterrorism Country Report. Despite these serious and growing threats, the global community is much more divided due to two active wars in Europe and the Middle East.

The author is a security analyst and former Director General of Police