Islamic State launched a major recruitment drive last year aimed at militants from Tajikistan and other central Asian countries and specifically targeting experienced members of existing groups with a long history of terrorist attacks, western and other intelligence services have said.
Three of the four men detained by Russian security forces for the attack at a Moscow concert hall on Friday night are thought to be Tajik nationals or of Tajik origin. Video clips of the interrogation of four alleged attackers detained by Russian security forces showed at least one speaking Tajik.
IS has claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow, which killed 137, posting two statements describing its operation as “a powerful blow against Russia” and repeatedly boasting of killing Christians. The group also posted graphic footage apparently taken by attackers as they opened fire on concertgoers.
Nevertheless, Moscow has sought to blame Ukraine for the attack – a claim Kyiv strongly denies.
Intelligence shared in a recent United Nations report into the activities of IS reveals that over the last 12 months, the group’s local affiliate in Afghanistan had succeeded in recruiting leading militants from Jamaat Ansarullah, a veteran Tajikistan extremist Islamist group, as well as others in central Asia.
Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), which uses a name employed by some Islamic rulers to describe Afghanistan and the surrounding region, also set up a Telegram channel and used multiple other social media platforms to broadcast propaganda aimed at Tajiks and others in the region.
The report, submitted to the UN security council in January, reported a “high concentration of terrorist groups in Afghanistan” and said that “notwithstanding a decrease in the number of attacks perpetrated by Isil-K [ISKP] and its recent loss of territory, casualties and high attrition among senior and mid-tier leadership figures … the group [is seen] as the greatest threat within Afghanistan, with the ability to project a threat into the region and beyond”.
It added that the group “adopted a more inclusive recruitment strategy, including by focusing on attracting disillusioned Taliban and foreign fighters”.
Militants from Tajikistan, which has suffered from a long-running extremist Islamist insurgency, and several other central Asian states have been linked to a series of recent IS attacks in Europe as well as Iran, where about 100 died in a massive bombing at a commemoration ceremony in January.
Iran initially blamed Israel and the US for the attack but its intelligence ministry later identified the ringleader and bombmaker as Tajik. According to the Iranian government press agency, the suspect had entered the country by crossing Iran’s south-east border, eventually leaving two days before the attack, after making the bombs. One of the two suicide bombers was also Tajik, reports said.
US and European intelligence agencies have noted a sharp increase in international plots linked to ISKP, which some analysts believe is the strongest affiliate of IS outside Africa.
“Member states noted the existence of operational plots in European states planned or conducted by ISIS-K [ISKP]. In July and August, seven Tajik, Turkmen and Kyrgyz individuals linked to ISIL-K [ISKP] were arrested in … Germany, while planning to conduct high-impact terrorist attacks for which they were obtaining weapons and possible targets,” the UN report noted.
On Tuesday German authorities arrested two Afghan suspected extremists believed to have been planning an attack on the Swedish parliament. One of the two men is alleged to have travelled from Germany to join ISKP.
On 31 December German police arrested three Tajiks and one Uzbek national suspected of plotting an attack on Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve. The men were linked by investigators to IS.
Tajiks have been involved in multiple other plots in Europe and Turkey over recent years. Two IS militants who in January attacked a church in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring another, were from Tajikistan and Russia.
Earlier this month, Russian security forces killed two Kazakhstan nationals they said were planning an ISKP-linked attack on a synagogue in an operation in the Kaluga region south-west of Moscow.
Since being founded eight years ago, ISKP has mainly focused on its local campaign. It has launched hundreds of attacks on both civilian targets and security forces – including those of the west – in Afghanistan. Two attacks in 2020 targeted a Kabul maternity ward and Kabul University. Others have hit mosques and ethnic or religious minorities in Afghanistan.
The group was also responsible for a hugely destructive attack on Kabul’s international airport in 2021 that killed 13 US troops and more than 150 civilians during the chaotic US evacuation from the country.
The turn to international targets may have been prompted by directives from senior leadership of IS in Iraq and Syria, where the group has suffered significant losses.
The UN report noted that the war in Gaza has provided a potential opportunity for extremist Islamist groups to recruit, but that IS has been forced to balance hostility to Hamas with a desire to foment violence against longstanding enemies.
“Public communications by [IS] in response to the events in Israel and Gaza since 7 October have been cautious and calibrated, aimed at exacerbating religious intolerance. [IS] remained firmly antipathetic to Hamas, whose members it considers apostates. [IS] media output has been focused on capitalising on the situation in Gaza to mobilise potential lone actors to commit attacks,” the report said.
