Representatives of the US intelligence announced reliable data regarding the responsibility of the ISIS terrorist group for the terrorist attack in the "Crocus City Hall" shopping center near Moscow.
What US intelligence officials say
According to the information of Western journalists, an unnamed American official told about the information regarding the responsibility of ISIS for the terrorist attack in the suburbs of Moscow.
At the same time, ISIS terrorists released their own statement in the publication of the Aamaq news agency, claiming responsibility for the attack.
In the statement of the terrorists in the Telegram channel, it was noted that the attack was carried out on a large gathering of Christians in Krasnohorsk near Moscow.
Journalists of Reuters and Al Jazeera TV channel explain that we are talking about the Afghan branch of the "Islamic State", which is called "ISIL-K" (Khorasan — ISIS-K).
According to US intelligence, this terrorist branch of ISIS carried out 2 terrorist attacks in Iran. More than a hundred people died as a result.
In September 2022, ISIS militants claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on the Russian embassy in Kabul.
And a year earlier, the group was responsible for an attack on the international airport in the capital of Afghanistan.
This week, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack outside a bank in Kandahar that killed three people and wounded 12, according to local police.
What could be the reasons for the attack of ISIS terrorists on "Crocus City Hall"
Western experts say that ISIS-K terrorists have been spreading propaganda critical of Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin for the past few years.
Analyst Colin Clark from the Soufan Center research group in New York notes that the terrorists of the Afghan branch of ISIS have expressed their hatred for Putin very strongly in recent years.
According to Murat Aslan, a military analyst and former colonel of the Turkish army, Russia, like the United States, is waging a war with ISIS in Syria.
Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington told Al Jazeera that ISIS-K believes that Putin's Russia is "oppressing Russian Muslims."
Among the examples he cited the invasion of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the actions of the Russian Federation in Chechnya, Moscow's close relations with the governments of Syria and Iran, and "especially the military campaigns that Russia conducted against ISIS militants in Syria and — through the mercenaries of the Wagner Group — in some parts of Africa".
Kugelman added that the ISIS group also includes a number of Central Asian militants who have their own claims against Moscow.
