Attacks on Russia Will Only Increase

The explosions had barely ripped through a tunnel between the Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations in the St. Petersburg’s Metro system on Monday afternoon, when supporters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria began celebrating online. ISIS supporters shared pictures of the bombing’s aftermath over Gazwa, a pro-ISIS channel, even though no one has yet claimed responsibility for the deadly attack that has killed at least 10 people.

That Russia may have been attacked by jihadists should come as no surprise. In the early post-9/11 years, Russia trumpeted its counterterrorism cooperation with America to root out al-Qaeda. But over the years, attacks on Russian soil have largely been launched by local Sunni groups (some of whom espouse a pro-al-Qaeda worldview) with varying objectives, the Ibn al-Khattab battalion. As the years wore on, Islamic militants launched many high-profile attacks on Russian soil, including ones specifically targeting transportation infrastructure—suicide bombings in the Moscow Metro in 2004 and 2010, an explosion that derailed the Moscow-St. Petersburg express railroad in 2007, and suicide attacks on the in 2011 and on a bus in Volgograd in 2013.