But importantly, and this is often overlooked, the penetration of politicised and radical [neo-] Salafism into pluralistic local Sunni- Hanafi doctrine and practice should be taken into account.

We should analyse thoroughly the factors that brought about IS into the Middle East to draw lessons on how to prevent the outbreak of similar cases in our region. Terrorism waged for the sake of seemingly religious aims cannot develop without a particular political conjuncture, social and psychological grounding.

Many analyses of terrorism have overlooked the psychological factor — the existence of hurt psychology and phenomenon of self- estrangement — in would-be radical militants. The mental prison of takfiri ideology produced by radical neo-Salafism incorporates the foundations of the above mentioned psychological factor. This factor is often coupled with the brutalisation of human nature.

Takfirism is a brand of radical neo-Salafism whose adherents accuse all other Muslims of unbelief and apostasy. Neo-Salafism is itself politicised, centralist, fond of a uniformity set of teaching which inculcates the siege mentality.

Consequently, we should be aware of the ongoing process of the penetration of neo-Salafist teachings in post-Soviet Sunni Muslim communities. The neutralisation of neo-Salafism in Central Eurasia would have been much more productive if it had not been the influence of some foreign actors. We cannot help but suspect the financial leverage of some states where political regimes are, at least, sympathetic to neo-Salafism.

Second, we should heed the phenomenon of the existence of how traumatised psychology shaped either by post-Soviet criminal under-culture or oppressive politics of highly authoritarian regimes.

We shouldn’t also forget that IS flourishes in the Middle East where the large communities of Sunni Muslims have become subject to brutalisation by oppressive and sectarian regimes.