Four gunmen opened fire on a crowd of civilians at a concert venue in Moscow, Russia on Mar. 22, claiming at least 144 lives. U.S. intelligence believes the radical Islamist group ISIS-K, an ISIS offshoot, was behind the attack.
Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan retraces the history of both ISIS and ISIS-K, explaining that ISIS-K views ISIS as “too soft” and believes even more strongly in the use of violence against civilians to achieve political goals.
Below is an excerpt from Peter’s April 8 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
With the recent attack on Moscow, I received some requests to do a breakdown on the geopolitics of ISIS. First things first, there are two largely unaffiliated groups at play here – ISIS-Khorasan and the more widely known, ISIS.
The original ISIS (aka the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) primarily operates in the middle Fertile Crescent region. In recent years ISIS has not done well, losing control over all the territory it once controlled, being reduced to little more than a strategic nuisance.
ISIS-Khorasan has no specific region in which it operates, but rather targets Shia populations and engages in violent activities against secular governments it perceives as oppressing Muslims, such as Russia.