The April 3, 2017 bombing that ripped through the metro station in St. Petersburg, Russia is one of the indicators that extremist terrorist organizations are increasingly targeting Russia. The latest attack took place after ISIS and extremist organizations in Syria and Iraq threatened to attack Russian cities in retaliation for the Russian military intervention in Syria, and its alliance with Iran, Hezbollah and the Assad regime. It is further an outcome of the changes in the map of activity of terrorist organizations and their expansion into areas populated by Muslim communities in Central Asia, Russia and China. 

Rising Threats

Despite the fact that Russian official investigation has not yet disclosed the full details of the St. Petersburg metro attack that killed 14 people and wounded dozens others, initial information reveal that the attacker used the same tactics of attacks carried out by ISIS in Western countries. 

Russian security authorities revealed that the St. Petersburg metro attack was carried out by Akbarzhon Jalilov, a suicide bomber originally from the central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan, authorities said.

The Russian Investigative Committee said the attack was carried out by the 23-years-old Kyrgyz Russian national born in Kyrgyzstan who carried the bomb in a backpack. Investigators spoke about a second, larger explosive device that was found and defused at another metro station, which suggests that a terrorist cell plotted, and attempted to carry out two synchronized attacks.

The attack is directly linked to a rise in number of attacks against Russia and neighboring countries over the past years. On January 24, 2011, a bomb attack at Moscow's Domodedovo airport that killed at least 35 people and injured 137 others, was claimed by separatist groups in the Northern Caucasus region. Later on, on  December 29 and 30, 2011 attack, two separate suicide bombings targeted mass transportation in the city of Volgograd, Southern Russia, killing 34 people and injuring  85 overall.

On February 2, 2016, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said seven suspected members of ISIS were detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on suspicion of preparing to carry out terror acts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The country's intelligence service said the seven were identified as citizens of Russia and several Central Asian countries. 

The assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, on December 19, 2016, at an art exhibition called "Russia through Turks' eyes" by a lone police officer, who was a sympathizer of  extremist organizations operating in Syria, cannot be seen in isolation either. 

In early March, Russia's National Anti-terrorism Committee announced that an ISIS-linked terrorist cell in Russian Republic of Dagestan. The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that an Uzbek citizen was sentenced to 30 years in jail for recruiting Muslims for ISIS while spending a jail term. The development indicate escalating organized terrorist activity in Russia. 

Since 2012, the Caucasus region witnessed a rise in terrorist attacks- from suicide bombings that targeted local police forces in the Republic of Ingushetia, to an August 2012 armed attack on the anti-terrorism unit in the Republic of Chechenya, and the occupation of the state Press House along with a nearby school in the Chechen capital of Grozny in December 2014 by a group of Chechen insurgents, who were killed by the Russian forces.

Before pledging allegiance to ISIS, terrorist organizations operating in the Caucasus region carried out a number of terrorist attacks on a Russian military patrol in Sunzha town in Ingushetia in early June 2015. They further attacked a Russian airbase in Kyrgyzstan in early July 2015 which coincided with the busting of a terrorist cell plotting suicide attacks in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic during the holiday season. Moreover, the Russian security service apprehended a terrorist cell operating a bomb factory in Dagestan in June 9, 2015.

Prior to the St. Petersburg attack, ISIS claimed responsibility of a March 24, 2017 attack on a military base of the National Guard of Russia in Chechnya that left six Russian soldiers dead. Six of the attackers had also been killed, according to SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based organization that tracks the online activity of terrorist organizations.

Why Russia?

Due to ISIS militants’ increasing threats against Russia, the St. Petersburg bombing cannot be perceived as an unexpected development. In late March, 2017, Twitter accounts run by ISIS sympathizers published a video and an image featuring the message "We will burn Russia", and "kill them wherever you find them" including a picture of Kremlin as its background. Other posts included a picture of a person shooting Russian President Vladimir Putin in the head and proclaiming the same message "We will burn Russia". Such videos are frequently posted on ISIS commanders and personnel’s social media accounts threatening terrorist attacks on Russia. 

Within this context, the prime motives behind terrorist organizations' recent focus on targeting Russia are the following: 

1. Russian involvement in Syria. Russia is now the most effective and active international power in the Syrian conflict. It transformed its position from being an international supporter of some domestic parties within the conflict, to being a direct stakeholder involved in the conflict after it deployed military forces, set up a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartous on the Mediterranean coast, and the Hmeimim air base near the Syrian coastal city of Lattakia. The deployment made Russia a direct target for terrorist organizations due in particular to a rise in its airstrikes on the strongholds of ISIS and other organizations in Syria to support the Assad regime. 

2. Allying with the Iranian Axis. The extremist organizations’ increasing targeting of Moscow is driven by Russia’s direct support for the Iranian axis in the Middle East, which comprises the Assad regime and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, as well as by Russia’s close alliance with Iran that culminated in Iran’s announcement that Russia can use Iranian military bases in Iran. Amid the sectarian and confessional congestion dominating civil conflicts in the region, Russia became part of the Shiite camp, according to leaders of extremist organizations, sparking a flurry of fatwas (religious rulings) from leaders of terrorist organizations urging attacks on Russia for being the chief proponent of Shiite forces and militias against Sunni factions.

3. Threats from Caucasian jihadists. Fighters from Russia and Muslim republics in the Caucasus region are the best trained and the fiercest in the battlefields in Syria. Data from strategic security intelligence services provider Soufan Group and official Russian sources reveal that there are some 2400 Russian fighters in Syria. Multiple sources estimate that the average number of Russian-speaking fighters in the ranks of ISIS are ranging from 5000 to 7000. Accordingly, Russian became the third most spoken language within ISIS after Arabic and English. 

The Caucasian jihadists are highly capable combatants compared to their peers from other countries. They acquired high combat skills and military and technological experience from their involvement in successive wars against the Russian Armed Forces. Some of them took part in military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. 

Caucasian commanders who gained experience from serving in the Russian army or the armies of Caucasian Republics include Gulmorad Halimov, who served in Tajikistan’s Special Operation Forces, and the now-deceased Tarkhan Batirashvili, who served in the Georgian army until 2010. 

Moreover, the Caucasian jihadists tend to form homogenous battalions that comprise nationals of Russian-speaking countries such as the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (‎ Army of Emigrants and Supporters, or JAMWA), the Salahuddin al Shishani, faction, and the Mujahideen of the Caucasus and the Levant (MCL). 

4. Trends of vengeance and retaliation. As mentioned previously, Russian is the third-most-popular ISIS language, after Arabic and English. Russian graffiti reportedly seen in Darayya, Syria, reads: “Today Syria, tomorrow Russia! Chechens and Tatars rise up! Putin, we will pray in your palace!” This expresses Russian-speaking ISIS fighters’ strong desire to seek revenge from the Russian regime. 

5. Widespread ISIS-Linked organizations. Although the FSB managed to kill Rustam Asildarov, AKA Emir Abu Muhammad Kadarsky, the leader of ISIS’s North Caucasus branch, and a former leader of the militant Caucasus Emirate's Vilayat Dagestan wing, on December 3, 2016, ISIS’s expansion into  the former Soviet Union republics has not stopped. A majority of terrorist organizations in the Caucasus region have pledged allegiance and loyalty to ISIS and its commanders, thus transforming the Caucasus region into one of ISIS’s most important centers in all Asia.

The Caucasus Emirate is an entity responsible for coordination between local groups and organizations operating in Chechnya, Dgaestan, Tatarstan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. After a decline in the number of supporters for al-Qaeda in recent years, the majority of these groups became linked to ISIS. Moreover, as the Russian security forces were focused on killing the commanders of terrorist organizations, young extremist commanders rose to prominence within organizations developing stronger links to ISIS. 

The most prominent extremist groups in the Caucasus region include a faction commanded by Gulmorad Halimov in Tajikistan, the Khasavyurt group, Johar Jawadaef Group, Abu Omar al-Azari, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Southern Gang Group in Dagestan, and the Okhofska group whose leader Khosama Gucharanov was killed at the hands of Russian forces on April 27, 2015 after pledging allegiance to ISIS.

These groups pose a threat due to the fact that they comprise former military soldiers and officers who served in the armies of Russia’s Muslim republics and Central Asia countries. Some of these served in the special operations forces of these states and gained enhanced combat capabilities that they use against Russia.

6. Multiple Paths for Returning Foreign Fighters. Although the Russian authorities tightened their border security measures to prevent the entry of Russian fighters returning from Syria, ISIS elements use multiple paths to overcome these measures and enter the country. ISIS militants have been taking advantage of the strong ties between Russian-speaking ethnic nations and Turkey, relying on financial facilities provided by some groups involved in Dawah (proselytizing of Islam), and charities in Russia and Central Asian countries. In addition, some Central Asian countries condone the movement of some returning fighters through their borders with Turkey in exchange for a pledge from these fighters not to carry out any attacks on their territory.

Breaching Heartland

Despite its tight security grip on the Northern Caucasus republics and its strategy mandating the killing of extremist commanders and dismantling extremist organizations from within, Russia still faces the problem that the center of gravity of these organizations from peripheral regions into its heartland. 

Leon Aron, the Director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, on November 13, 2015, published an analysis in the Washington Post, in which he noted that an estimated 20 million Muslims (including 6.5 million migrants from Azerbaijan and Central Asia) live in Russia, compared to 14.5 million in 2002, while population grown in Russia has slowed down. 

While the vast majority of these men and women are peaceful, a small but growing number follow the fundamentalist teachings, ultra-conservative movements within Sunni Islam. In many cases, these ideas are spread by Russian-born clerics and imams (numbering in the tens of thousands), who were trained in the Middle East, according to Aron.

The Tatars are Russia’s largest Muslim ethnic group (there are about 5 million). The republic witnessed escalating tension that culminated In a July 2012 attack on the Chief Mufti of Tatarstan and his deputy, both moderate clerics who had opposed what they perceived as the spread of Salafism and Wahhabism. According to statistics, six of the nine Russian nationals fanatics held at Guantanamo Bay were ethnic Tatars. The first Taliban officer tried in a U.S. civilian court, Hamidullin, is from Naberezhnye Chelny, the most radical of Tatarstan’s large cities and a focal point for Salafism in the region. 

The changing demographics of Russia is linked to inflows of workers from Central Asia. Russia hosts some 6.5 million guest workers from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirgizstan live in Russia. There are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Muslims in Moscow alone, making Russia’s capital the largest Muslim city in Europe.

These men live in the shadows, often without work permits. They are culturally and ethnically marginalized, and often subject to abuse, extortion and occasional racist violence because the Russian discriminate against them and reject their presence in their society. The majority of these workers are seen as illegitimate and subject to crackdown by security authorities seeking to deport them. Radical imams contribute to the spread of extremism among those who come from Central Asia, while also facilitating their travel to ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

According to statements made by Russian politicians and security officials over the past two years, some Russian fighters returned from Syria to Russia’s heartland to carry out terrorist attacks inside Russian cities, which exacerbates security challenges facing Russia due to the wide geographical area in which extremist organizations operate in neighboring countries. 

To conclude, a rise in terrorist threats against Russia is likely in the coming period due to the domestic demographic changes, the spread of extremist organizations in Russia’s immediate Central Asian neighbors, and extremist organization’s continued attempt to make Russia’s military presence in Syria and support for the Iranian axis in the Middle East a costly one.