Giovanni Savino per Valigia Blu cerca di fare il punto dopo l’attentato al Crocus City Hall che ha sconvolto Mosca la sera di venerdì 22 marzo.

La velocità dell’attacco – sarebbe durato 18 minuti – e i danni che ha causato sono stati impressionanti, portando alla parziale distruzione del complesso e a un numero enorme di vittime ancora difficile da quantificare. Le modalità dell’azione, che ha visto il tentativo della security del Crocus di fronteggiare i terroristi soccombendo immediatamente, sembrerebbero testimoniare un elevato livello di preparazione, simile ad altri attacchi del terrorismo islamista nello scorso decennio; l’arresto di undici persone, di cui i quattro esecutori materiali, fermati a circa centocinquanta chilometri dal confine ucraino, pare far pensare a una rete presente in Russia. La rivendicazione dell’ISIS, arrivata da un canale ritenuto vicino al movimento, è stata successivamente messa in dubbio, anche se fonti d’intelligence statunitense hanno confermato al New York Times e alla CBS l’autenticità della pista islamista.

Stanno uscendo intanto le prime analisi su The Guardian che ieri ha pubblicato un articolo a firma Dan Sabbagh intitolato «Moscow attack is grim reminder that large-scale acts of terror have not gone away»:

The mass killing at a concert venue also carries with it obvious chilling echoes of the murderous attack, also by IS gunmen, at the Bataclan in Paris in November 2015, which killed 89, and the suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena in 2017 after an Ariana Grande concert, which killed 22. Last year, leaks from US intelligence showed that ISKP, based in Afghanistan, was conducting “aspirational plotting” in the US, Europe and Asia, with targets such as the last World Cup in Qatar in mind. Whatever the west’s wider relationship with Moscow is, counter-terror investigators know it is time to be particularly vigilant.

Sempre il Guardian ha pubblicato un’analisi di Jason Burke dal titolo «Who is thought to be behind the Moscow attack?»  che cerca di rispondere a molte domande sull’ISKP (ISIS-K):

Who is responsible for the attack? Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack, praising the “Islamic fighters” who carried it out. Many commentators and US officials have pointed to the IS affiliate called Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) as prime suspect – though so far there is no evidence that this is the case. ISKP is a branch of Islamic State in Afghanistan. The name comes from that given to a region by some local Islamic rulers and so explicitly rejects modern national frontiers while evoking what its members consider the lost glory and power of Muslim empires. It was formed at the peak of the expansion of IS in 2015 when the Iraq- and Syria-based group was trying to expand by building a network of affiliates through the Middle East, the Maghreb, west Asia and other parts of Africa. These efforts brought mixed results. However, hundreds of disillusioned Taliban fighters and some from factions in Pakistan were attracted by the extremism and resources of IS. These formed the nucleus of ISKP – and the group remains linked to IS to this day.

Gordon Corera, Security correspondent per BBC News si chiede se la Russia abbia ignorato gli avvertimenti su un attacco imminente:

Three days before the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the board of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), whose job is to defend the country. The top priority, he told the assembled leaders of the security service, was to support what he called the special military operation – the official phrase for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He claimed that Ukraine had switched to what he called “terrorist tactics”. He also spoke directly to what he said were “provocative statements” from the West about potential attacks within Russia. He said the warnings “resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilise our society”.

Nick Paton Walsch sulla CNN ipotizza che i fantasmi delle guerre del passato stiano tornando: “The ghost of Russia’s past wars comes back to haunt Moscow”

Yet Putin faces the same sort of Islamist enemy as 2002, in a world transformed. If indeed ISIS-K – the militant group’s Afghan branch – were responsible, as their claim and advance warnings from US officials suggest, it means a new generation of extremists have Russia in their sights, following Russia’s bloody suppression of Islamism in the south. Twenty years ago, the Dubrovka gunmen were the disturbed product of Russia’s savage anti-terror campaign that summarily executed hundreds of military aged males in Chechnya in the early 2000s. Friday’s attackers likely spawned from an ideology born online, after the short-lived Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and in the furnace of hotly-suppressed Islamism in Central Asia and Afghanistan.