“Newspaper reported”Wall Street Journal“The attack that killed dozens of people in Iran this week shows the strength of ISIS and its ability to inflame tensions in the Middle East and Central Asia, after years of setbacks in its former strongholds.
While the newspaper indicated that the threat of ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings in Iran, has receded in its stronghold in Iraq and Syria, it confirmed that its central leadership and thousands of fighters continue to work there, and the terrorist group also represents a growing threat in West Africa, where it has seized large areas of territory in Last few years.
American officials and experts suggested that the ISIS branch in Afghanistan-Khorasan was likely behind the Iran bombings.
The United States designated ISIS-K as a terrorist organization in 2016, as is the original organization and its regional branches in Africa, the Philippines, and Bangladesh.
‘A real threat’
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Thursday that ISIS-K “remains a real terrorist threat.”
Two sources familiar with intelligence information told Reuters on Friday that communications intercepted by the United States confirmed the involvement of the ISIS branch in Afghanistan in the two bombings.
“The intelligence information is clear and indisputable,” one of the sources said.
The two sources, who requested that their names not be published due to the sensitivity of the matter, said that the intelligence information included intercepted communications, without providing further details. There have been no previous reports of interception of these communications.
The two suicide bombings that took place on Wednesday in the city of Kerman in southern Iran, and were claimed by the Islamic State, killed at least 91 people.
The two bombings occurred near the shrine of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, during a ceremony commemorating the fourth anniversary of his killing by an American air strike in Iraq.
The attack in Kerman increased the risk of the three-month war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas quickly escalating into a broader conflict in the Middle East, according to the American newspaper, which referred to accusations leveled by Iranian officials against Israel of being behind the attack.
Even after ISIS announced its responsibility for the operation, Tehran continued to blame its opponents – Israel and the United States.
American officials confirmed to the newspaper that the United States had no role in the attack, and they had no indication that Israel was behind it.
Between “ISIS” and blaming Israel… terrorism is a “weak point” that Iran refuses to acknowledge
The New York Times newspaper considered that the sense of security with which Iran had long justified its military presence in Iraq and Syria to its people and the world was “shattered” on Wednesday with the deadliest terrorist attack since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
“Create chaos”
ISIS has previously claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Iran, including a 2018 attack on an Iranian military parade that killed 25 people, and two separate attacks launched by gunmen on a Shiite shrine in Shiraz in 2022 and 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about ten people.
In this regard, the Wall Street Journal explained that ISIS also repeatedly attacks the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. Iranian proxies also fought ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
“ISIS’s strategy is to try to create chaos and take advantage of others fighting each other,” said Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.
Zelin said it was possible that ISIS-K was the one that carried out the bombings. He said that this would be the third attack launched by the branch in Iran during the past fifteen months, while Tehran had thwarted many other attempts.
ISIS controlled large areas of territory in Syria and Iraq starting in 2014, and launched a widespread campaign of violent attacks on civilians in these regions and other regions around the world. By 2019, after years of Iraqi, Syrian, and American military operations, the terrorist group was defeated from this region.
The Taliban regime, which has been in power in Afghanistan since 2021, considers ISIS-K as a competitor, and has fought and weakened it. However, Zelin said, the Taliban are far less interested in preventing the group from carrying out attacks abroad.
ISIS-K has regularly carried out attacks in Pakistan, including a political rally in July that killed dozens. It also carried out missile strikes across Afghanistan’s borders into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The Taliban says it does not allow Afghan territory to be used to launch attacks against other countries, and condemned the attack in Iran.
Many Afghans, including ISIS Khorasan leader Shihab al-Muhajir, speak Persian, the language spoken in Iran, and the two countries share a border. A large number of Afghan immigrants also live in Iran, making it easier for the group to operate there, according to Abdul Sayed, an independent researcher on jihad affairs in the Afghan-Pakistani region.
He added that ISIS-K aims to use the attacks to undermine relations between Tehran and Kabul, which are already tense.
“This will create great political pressure on the Taliban,” Syed said.
‘Horrific repercussions’
Al-Qaeda also exists in Afghanistan, but it is fragile there, after an American drone strike killed its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul in 2022.
Experts said that ISIS’s central leadership sets broad goals and issues announcements, but its affiliated groups enjoy the independence to act according to that agenda.
In Syria and Iraq, the group operates in small cells facing attack from government forces and the US army. The United Nations estimated in mid-2023 that the organization still includes between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in the two countries.
ISIS-K fighters have been captured in a series of arrests in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe over the past three years, according to Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Countering Extremism Project think tank.
He added that other ISIS-affiliated groups may be making plans to launch attacks in the West. He added that ISIS now controls an area of territory in West Africa roughly equivalent to what it was at its peak in Syria and Iraq about ten years ago.
“The center of gravity now is Africa,” Schindler said. “Sooner or later, there are going to be some really horrific repercussions.”
#bombings #Iran #ISIS #continuing #danger #setbacks #Iraq #Syria
2024-01-07 04:19:07
