Islamic State group claims responsibility for killings

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the suburban Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people.

The group claimed responsibility, first on Friday and then again on Saturday, on the social media channels that they typically use to issue statements.

US officials say they believe an organization known as ISIS-K, or the Islamic State Khorasan Province, carried out the strike.

The group’s Afghanistan affiliate takes its name from Khorasan Province, a region taking in much of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia in the Middle Ages.

Russia’s FSB, the Federal Security Service, said it disrupted an attack by the group that was aimed at a Moscow synagogue just several weeks ago.

ISIS-K, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, has also claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past.

They were behind the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that left 13 US troops and about 170 Afghans dead during the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

ISIS-K also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, in January that killed 95 people at a memorial procession for General Qassem Soleimani.

A security expert, Olivier Guitta, argues that there is much to back up the Islamic State’s claim, including the fact that the group had specifically threatened Russia.

General Michael Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command, told Congress last March that ISIS-K was quickly developing the ability to conduct “external operations” in Europe and Asia.