ISIS could „attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning,“ said CENTCOM’s head.
With much of international attention gripped by the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has been steadily ramping up operations across continents and setting the stage for a resurgence of global mayhem.
This latent threat came to life on Friday with ISIS claiming responsibility for a massacre targeting a concert held at Crocus City Hall outside of Moscow. It marked the deadliest militant attack on Russian soil since the 2002 theater hostage crisis in the capital. Experts and officials warn the next operation could target virtually anyone, including U.S. citizens.
Just one day before the attack, U.S. Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla told lawmakers in Congress that „ISIS-Khorasan retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.“ Weeks earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had urged U.S. nationals to avoid crowded events, „to include concerts.“
The latest attack has reclaimed international attention for the jihadis that, at their peak just a decade ago, presided over a self-styled caliphate spanning the size of Portugal. However, the roots of ISIS‘ attempted resurgence have been taking hold for some time.
The group’s so-called Khorasan province (ISIS-K or ISKP) has been particularly active in its base country of Afghanistan, using the Taliban-held nation to launch attacks at home and against neighboring Iran and Pakistan, in spite of efforts by all three governments. The militants also began expanding operations beyond the region, with Russia, Germany, Turkey and Tajikistan recently cracking down on alleged ISIS-K plots.
„The land of Islam is the one that the Muslims gained with their sacrifices, which covers the Africa, starts from Eastern Turkestan, to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan,“ the author wrote. „It extends to Chechnya and Dagestan, and from Turkey to as far as Andalus and the Middle Eastern countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and so much more….“
The article went on to delineate one border of the self-proclaimed caliphate in southern France; another between Indonesia and Australia; and a third between Russia’s Turkic- and Muslim-majority neighbors in Central Asia, which have long struggled with Islamist separatists; and China’s Xinjiang region, where ISIS-K has sought to rekindle a Uyghur insurgency in support of an independent, Islamist East Turkestan.
The cover story of this particular edition of the ISIS-K publication placed a target on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, where the group claimed a deadly assault on a Roman Catholic church in Istanbul in late January. The previous edition prominently featured Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran, where ISIS-K claimed the deadliest attack in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic just weeks earlier in the city of Kerman.
ISIS-K messaging has lashed out at a wide array of foes, including U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as leaders of Hamas and, especially, the Taliban, from which the group has sought to sap legitimacy and manpower.
While Afghanistan may not be the extent of ISIS-K’s reach, it does appear to be the base of operations. The group first took hold in the war-torn country during its rapid rise in the neighboring Middle East a decade ago and clashed with both the U.
