The Moscow attackers’ path from Türkiye to Russia: More questions

Russian authorities announced that as of the evening of March 25th, the number of casualties from the attack on a concert hall in Moscow on the evening of March 22 had reached 139, with nearly 140 injured.

Three days after the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that “radical Islamists” carried out the attack, which was claimed by ISIS, but continued to blame Ukraine.

Moscow court arrested 4 ISIS militants of Tajikistan origin as a part of the investigation. Another dimension was added to the attack after one of the four militants, Shamsidin Fariduni, said in the interrogation that he came to Russia from Türkiye.

When Faruduni was captured, he had said during interrogation that he had gone to Türkiye because “his visa had expired.”

Turkish security forces investigating the matter found that two of the four Tajikistan nationals responsible for the terrorist act had travelled to Türkiye.

Moscow attack: When was Fariduni in Türkiye?

One of them was Fariduni. He claimed that individuals he communicated with on a Telegram channel promised him 500,000 rubles for this act. According to the Russian Ria Novosti agency, Fariduni resides in the city of Krasnagorsk, Russia.

According to information obtained from security sources, Fariduni arrived in Istanbul by air from Moscow on February 20, 2024, and checked into a hotel in Fatih district on February 21.

On February 23, he posted 8 photos from Fatih with the location tag “Aksaray Istanbul” on his Instagram account. Fariduni, who left the hotel on February 27, returned to the Russian Federation from Istanbul Airport on March 2.

Another arrested attacker, Saidakram Rajabalizoda, arrived in Istanbul on January 5, 2024, about a month before Fariduni, and checked into a hotel in Fatih on the same day. This is the hotel where Fariduni would later come and stay.

However, it was found that Rajabalizoda left the hotel on the day Fariduni entered. Later, on March 2, he also returned to Moscow on the same plane as Fariduni.

A few critical questions

We can derive initial questions from this track. Where did Rajabalizoda stay between February 21 and March 2, and what did they do? We don’t have this information yet – maybe the security units do, but we don’t.

Secondly, how were these individuals able to enter and leave Türkiye so easily? We can get an answer to this from security sources: Since they did not have a “wanted” record, they could enter and exit easily by showing their passports.

Security sources say that the short duration these individuals spent in Türkiye is not enough for “radicalization.”

On the other hand, there is a consensus that these individuals are members of ISIS’s Khorasan Province, which consists mostly of Central Asian countries and Afghans, known as ISIS-K.

ISIS-K organization’s activities

ISIS conducted many bloody terrorist attacks in Türkiye between 2014-2017. Among these are the attack on the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014, the suicide bombing in Suruç in 2015, where 34 people were killed, the suicide bombing at Ankara Central Station, which was the deadliest attack in Turkish history with 109 killed, the attack on Istanbul Atatürk Airport in 2016, resulting in 48 casualties, the attacks on Istanbul’s Sultanahmet and Istiklal Avenue, resulting in 16 casualties, and the attack on the Reina nightclub, resulting in 39 deaths.

According to records from the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the police, the first known attack by ISIS’s Khorasan branch in Türkiye was the raid on the Santa Maria Catholic Church in Istanbul on January 28, where 1 person was killed. Officials explained that what prevented more casualties in this attack was that one of the terrorists’ guns jammed.

Bloody toll

Some of ISIS-K’s known hundreds of terrorist attacks include:

• April 12, 2019, attack on a market in Quetta, Pakistan: 22 dead, 48 injured.
• August 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul airport in Afghanistan: 183 dead, over 200 injured.
• October 26, 2022, raid on the Shah Cheragh mosque in Shiraz, Iran: 15 dead, over 40 injured.
• December 2, 2022, raid on a hotel where Chinese were staying in Kabul, Afghanistan: 6 dead, 15 injured.
• July 30, 2023, attack on an Islamic religious procession in Khar, Pakistan: at least 55 dead, 200 injured.
• January 3, 2024, attack on the anniversary ceremony of Revolutionary Guards Commander Qasem Soleimani in Kerman, Iran: 94 dead, 284 injured.

Just a day before the attack on the Crocus concert hall in Moscow, on March 21, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at a bank in Kandahar, Afghanistan: at least 21 dead, 50 injured were there. The next day, in Moscow.

Striking the West, hitting the East

After concentrating its actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, ISIS-K seems to be preparing to carry out attacks in Türkiye and Russia from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024. Among the attacks prevented by joint efforts of the Turkish police and intelligence was an attack on the Iraqi Embassy in Ankara.

A common feature of the attacks is that they always target Muslim countries, iand cause terror and bloodshed in the East if we include Russia. There could be several reasons for this. For example, ISIS-K militants may not find opportunities to blend into society in Western countries. For example, they may want to deepen the Sunni-Shia divide and generally deepen religious and sectarian divisions in Muslim societies. Or for example, despite appearing to serve opposite purposes in their strict Islamist and anti-Western stance, they may serve the interests of Western powers led by the US.

Putin insists on this last possibility. Let’s remember, in 2008, while the Turkish government was trying to open its doors in every geography, Putin closed the Fethullah Gülen schools under the name “Turkish Schools” with the accusation of “being in the service of US intelligence”. The reason behind Putin’s search for Ukrainian support behind the attack after stating that “they are radical Islamists but” lies under his suspicion that there is the guidance of Western powers through Ukraine behind ISIS.

Security circles in Türkiye also do not rule out the possibility that the ISIS-K organization is being manipulated by some Western circles.

“What goes around comes around”

Just as Washington’s policy of using radical Islamist mujahideen against Moscow’s occupation of Afghanistan contributed to the creation of al-Qadia, so did the Russian-backed Damascus government’s release of radicalized prisoners in 2013 contribute to the creation of ISIS.

Doesn’t Türkiye’s tolerance and support for political Islamist militants at the beginning of the Syrian civil war still haunt it?

Nevertheless, Türkiye has inflicted heavy losses on ISIS in Syria since 2016, but what goes around comes around.

Everyone reaps the whirlwind of the wind they sow.