After ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Moscow and promised to continue its barbaric actions, it was reported again that ISIS is a Sunni Islamic organization that is the carrier of Salafi jihadism. Salafism is a very specific trend that calls for the literal imitation of practices that were used by the communities of the time of Prophet Muhammad. A kind of Islamic radical reformation.
According to Yuriy Bohdanov from Kiev, the enemy of ISIS is everything that is not ISIS. Historically, other Muslims have suffered the most from the actions of ISIS. Both during the existence of the de facto ISIS state in Syria and Iraq (2014-2019), and before and after. And for ISIS-K, the main enemy is "not such" Muslims, and only then Russia.
ISIS is a completely logical apogee of the development of both fundamentalism and extremism, which perfectly germinated and scaled in the war-torn territories of Iraq and Syria. And the poor and destitute population, without the strong control of the secular state, is excellent material for religious propaganda and recruitment.
Currently, the main enemy of ISIS-K is the Taliban. ISIS now accuses the Taliban of not being Muslim enough. Literally: now they are criticizing the Taliban that they do not enforce Sharia law strictly enough and are too liberal. In second place, of course, is Shiite Iran. Yes, for ISIS, Shiites are even more evil than, say, Christians, because they consider Shiites to be heretics and apostates.
Russia, in this context, is a natural enemy of ISIS. First, it is now a direct ally of Iran. Secondly, it is actually a partner of the Taliban. In addition, according to ISIS, both the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Syria are crimes against Islam, according to ISIS.
Why did the FSB overlook this terrorist attack? If we reject pure conspiracy theory, then everything is quite logical: all the forces of Russia are thrown into the war against Ukraine, including the best cadre of the same FSB. There is no surplus of forces and resources in Russia. Therefore, the country is simply unprepared for such manifestations of asymmetric actions. If ISIS-K wants a sequel, it will have one. Or Putin will have to scatter resources.
Why does Russia blame the U.S. and Ukraine? Well, what else should they do? To say that they found an imaginary enemy, spent all their resources on a war with it, and now became vulnerable to another, real one, which was raised by their own crimes in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Syria? Or what? And so you can try to transfer from a sick head to a healthy one, said the opinion leader from Kiev.
