It is becoming more and more certain that the American and British intelligence really gave the Russians signals that in the next period there is a threat of an increase in dangerous acts by IS-K, the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. Since the tragedy, however, Moscow has been pointing the finger at Ukraine.
According to intelligence experts, it happens that a power shares sensitive information with another party even when their relationship is bad or hostile. In particular, such “back information” occurs when the persons at risk are civilians, children, or spectators of a major sports or cultural event.
One of the suspects of the Moscow terrorist attack in the glass-walled cage of a Moscow court on March 24, 2024 Photo: MTI
According to former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt (and others), at the same time, President Putin ignored American and British warnings about the threat of terrorism, which he called “provocation and blackmail” – writes Euronews.
In such cases, the question is always how much the informed party gives credence to the deeply confidential information, or how much he considers it to be intentional misdirection, probing, or panic-inducing.
Washington has also warned Iran of an imminent ISIS attack
According to The Wall Street Journal, for example, at the beginning of January, American intelligence warned Iran that an ISIS attack was being prepared at the grave of General Qasem Suleimani, where a large number of memorials were expected. However, the suicide attacks that did occur lead to the conclusion that Tehran did not consider the American information to be credible, so the terrorist attack resulted in more than a hundred deaths.
A U.S. official told CBS News that the United States has intelligence that supports Islamic State’s culpability in the Moscow terror attack, and that Washington has no reason to doubt its reliability. (From the beginning, it has been the practice of the Islamic State to subject terrorist groups that have sworn allegiance to it to identify the organization as a whole, rather than themselves, as perpetrators. It also wants to convey the global power and presence of the caliphate.)
There were direct signs of the possibility of an attack in Russia at the beginning of the month, when the security forces in Ingushetia started shooting with unknown persons. The militants barricaded themselves in a multi-story apartment building in Karabulak, but only six of them were killed. Anti-terror preparedness has been active in the town since then, because several suspects are on the run.
How much could the Russian president tell the security organization?
The analysis also points to the fact that last Tuesday the Russian president gave a briefing to the leaders of the Federal Security Service (FSS), in which he called on them to search for all traitors and prevent riots. It is not possible to know whether he did all this already in possession of Western information, but the probability of this is very high.
At the aforementioned presidential briefing on March 19, Vladimir Putin called the American and British warnings of a possible attack “total blackmail”. According to the president, the provocative statements are aimed at intimidating and destabilizing society.
Official Russian assessments are currently clearly focused on Ukraine and do not address the possibility of an ISIS line. U.S. officials fear that if President Putin falsely blames Ukraine for the attack, he could pressure Western governments to say who they believe is responsible.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters there was no indication that Ukraine or Ukrainians were involved in the terrorist attack.
Would extra precautions have been necessary?
The information gathered so far was enough to be considered “evaluable,” meaning that Moscow had time to prepare for the attacks after receiving the warning, American officials told The Wall Street Journal. “Since November, we have received an intelligence stream that ISIS is preparing to strike in Russia”.
IS-K has taken the place of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan
The name of IS-K, which took the place of al-Qaeda, was already associated with a series of merciless terrorist attacks, mainly against rural Shiite communities and churches in Afghanistan, long before the withdrawal from the West in 2022. They are also responsible for the attacks committed during the evacuation of the Kabul airport, which also had American victims.
Even before March, US intelligence agencies gathered information that the hyper-aggressive branch of ISIS (Daesh) in Afghanistan, IS-Khorasan (IS-K), was planning an attack on Moscow.
Russia is also “Land of Satan”, as is America and the West as a whole. Moscow played a significant role in the elimination of the caliphate in Syria
ISIS’s ideology and founding document clearly state that the organization’s goal is to establish a global Caliphate, which means eradicating other religions and ideas. In this regard, Russia is as much an ideological and military enemy to them as the United States.
The analyzes also remind us that Russia took a significant part in the broad military operations against ISIS in the late 2010s, carrying out a series of bombing attacks against areas controlled by the Caliphate, mainly in Syria, where it is estimated that the Russian air force killed at least twenty thousand ISIS fighters .
Murat Aslan, military analyst, Turkish army ny. According to his colonel, the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan is known for its “radical and harsh methods”. The expert told al-Jazeera that the terrorist organization is inspired by ideology in its selection of targets, and that they consider anyone who has fought against them in the Middle East, including Moscow, as an enemy.
Therefore, the attack could be an act of obligatory revenge as well as a sign of some deep strategy of conquest against Russia.