Russia’s Supreme Court has designated the Community of Followers of Batal-Hajji Belkhoroev (an unregistered international organization, also known as Batal Hajji Brotherhood) as a terrorist organization, the court’s press service reports.
“The highest judicial level ruled that the nature of the crimes committed by members of the movement constitutes grounds for banning its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Russia’s Supreme Court announced.
Also on Oct. 14, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) released a statement according to which members of the Community of Followers of Batal-Hajji Belkhoroev were involved in the mass casualty attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue five days after Russia’s 2024 presidential election, along with several other acts of terror.
“The Batal Hajji Brotherhood supplied automatic weapons and ammunition to the terrorists who shot visitors at the Crocus City Hall concert venue — an attack in which 147 people were killed, and more than 300 were injured to varying degrees of severity,” the statement says. According to the FSB, members of the community were also involved in the following crimes:
- An attack on the government agencies in Ingushetia on June 21–22, 2004, 78 killed
- The Nevsky Express train bombing in Tver Region on Nov. 27, 2009, 27 killed
- The assassination of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops.
In addition, the Batal Hajji Brotherhood allegedly helped “terrorist and extremist formations” fighting Russian troops in Ukraine, and since the 1990s the group has interacted with terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State and the Caucasus Emirate, the FSB claims.
The Batal Hajji Brotherhood (also referred to as “Belkhoroevites” or “Batlaks”) is a religious community in Ingushetia consisting of followers of Batal-Hajji Belkhoroev, the founder of a local Sufi brotherhood who lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In February 2023, Russia added the so-called combat wing of the Batal Hajji Brotherhood to its list of terrorist organizations.
In December 2024, the state-controlled newspaper Izvestia reported that individuals detained for aiding the Crocus terrorists belonged to the Batal Hajji community.
