ISIS on Moscow: Our Motive was to Kill "Christians"
ISIS posts jubilant selfie of Moscow terror gunmen boasting of its 'bloody attack' on 'large crowd of Christians' - as ultra-brutal offshoot of Islamist group claims its most bloody success yet
Members of a brutal-offshoot of
ISIS who claimed responsibility for the deadly
Moscow massacre that left more than 140 people dead posted a selfie in front of the terror group's flag in the wake of the attack.
The selfie, released by ISIS' official news agency Amaq, shows the 'four perpetrators' in dark baseball caps and face masks pointing upwards, a gesture that has long-been associated with the terror group.
The gesture refers to the tawhid, which is 'the belief in the oneness of God', according to foreign policy experts. The identities of the people seen in the selfie has not yet been confirmed, but ISIS claims they are among those who carried out the attack.
The attack was the 'most violent' perpetrated against
Russia 'in years', ISIS claimed, adding that attack on the Crocus City Hall in the western outskirts of Moscow on Friday night was part of the 'raging war between the Islamic State and countries fighting Islam.'
Though Amaq did not specify which branch of ISIS carried out the attack, US intelligence officials strongly believe that members of Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, that carried out the attack.
ISIS-K, set up in late 2014 in eastern
Afghanistan in the wake of US-led airstrikes against ISIS strongholds across
Iraq, is known for its extreme brutality.
Leader looks like a Neanderthal
The group has been led by Shahab al-Muhajir, an engineer by training and education, since 2020.
His name means 'Shahab the Migrant', referring to the fact that he is the first non-Afghan and non-Pakistani person to run ISIS-K
He reportedly spend time as a subcontractor of a security firm in Afghanistan, and was known to have spent some time on the US' Bagram Airfield, formerly the largest US military base in Afghanistan.
al-Muhajir is one of three ISIS-K members on the list of people sanctioned under an anti-terror directive first set out by George Bush in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, and renewed every year since by successive presidents.
The others are Sultan Aziz Azam, a spokesperson for the group, and Maulawi Rajab, a senior leader who 'plans ISIS-K’s attacks and operations and commands ISIS-K groups conducting attacks in Kabul', according the US State Department, which only sanctioned the terrorists in November 2021.
Meanwhile, the UK only sanctioned the three men in 2023. OFSI, the UK's sanctions body, said cited al-Muhajir responsibility 'for multiple terrorist attacks resulting in hundreds of deaths in 2021' as the reason for his punishment.
The selfie shows the 'four perpetrators' in dark baseball caps and face masks pointing upwards, a gesture that has long-been associated with the terror group
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