The terrorist organization is in the midst of one of the most chaotic news cycles leading up to the November vote after the FBI arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma who was planning an election-day shooting on behalf of the Islamic State group. I went in again.
According to the indictment, Nasir Ahmad Tawhidi, 27, of Oklahoma City, admitted to investigators that he and a co-conspirator would shoot into crowds on Election Day and die as martyrs of the Islamic State. That’s what it means.
Warnings in Western countries about attacks supported or inspired by IS have intensified in recent weeks.
In a statement on the Tawedi incident, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said there is a continuing need to “combat the continuing threat that (IS) and its supporters pose to the national security of the United States.” Ken McCallum, head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, has described how the agency’s task of managing the resurgent terrorist threat has been a “hell of a job”.
Despite statements from government officials, public perception remains that IS has been defeated or has somehow disappeared.
But experts say conversations within IS were far from quiet before and after the incident. On chat message boards and encrypted apps, supporters and operatives alike are increasingly discussing attacks on the West and the U.S. mainland, the group said.
The online dialogue is being led by IS-Khorasan (IS-K), the Afghanistan-based branch behind the Moscow attacks that killed 145 people in March. Khorasan refers to an ancient region that includes parts of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, and other border countries.
IS-K has quickly become the most active international force of terrorist groups, already carrying out deadly plots in Russia and, months earlier, in Iran. Days after Tauedi’s arrest, U.S. authorities later confirmed that he was an IS-K operative who allegedly led the plot.
IS-K put American targets at the top of its hit list in a propaganda poster released in September.
“(IS-K) recently announced their intention to target the United States by posting a poster in front of the U.S. Capitol depicting one of its militants holding a grenade with the caption, “You’re next.” “We reiterated this,” said Lucas Weber, senior threat intelligence analyst. At Tech Against Terrorism, a watchdog organization that works with government agencies around the world.
The Guardian obtained the same poster published online through a known IS-K platform.
“This is even more alarming given the branch’s mass casualty attacks on Russia and Iran, and the United States remains the enemy on the short list for successful foreign operations,” Weber said. he said.
Mr Webber said Mr Taweedi’s arrest provided a glimpse into the “increase” of Islamic State’s national plans. For example, earlier this week, a Maryland man was charged with aiding the Islamic State after he filed a criminal complaint for trying to buy a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Weber continued, “This follows the arrest of a Tajik (IS suspect) in Costa Rica; a Central Asian network that extends to New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia; and an attack on a Jewish center in New York. There was also a Pakistani national based in Canada who was said to have been planning.
IS-K has taken advantage of the turmoil in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power and established an operational base in the country in summer 2021, but its broader movement has also been buoyed by the October 7 attacks and the Israeli attack. Since the military operation, there has been a huge recruitment drive. Next.
This is part of IS-K’s recruitment plan aimed at young people in the West who cannot easily travel abroad. Relatives of Mr. Tauhedi, an Afghan who came to the United States after the fall of Kabul, were also charged in France with similar plots.
In the spring issue of the English-language propaganda magazine Voice of Khurasan, IS-K encourages “direct contact with the organization” and covert recruitment from Western regions through encrypted communications. I am.
Skip past newsletter promotions
Get the most important US headlines and highlights sent straight to your email every morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may include information about charities, online advertising, and content sponsored by external parties. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and are subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
After newsletter promotion
From Facebook and Instagram to Telegram and the lesser-known encrypted chat app Rocket Chat, Riccardo Valle, research director at Islamabad-based publication Khorasan Diary, said: Everything is closely tracking the movements of IS.
“The online discussion is very diverse,” he said. “However, there is increasing talk of IS using military force to carry out attacks and hijra (relocation) into Tamkeen, land it controls.”
There has been a long-standing debate within Islamic State circles over whether it would be more effective for its followers to carry out attacks in their own homes or to travel to active fighting areas where the group operates and join its allies there.
Barre said a user posted on the Rocket Chat forum, a communication platform of choice among IS supporters and operatives, lamenting Tauhedi’s arrest.
“If they had contacted these brothers before buying the gun from the informant, I think things might have turned out differently,” they said, while another said, “ live in the West, but they can do more damage here.”
In other chat dumps accessed by Valle and shared with the Guardian, users talk about “kitchen bombs, commercial drones” and other potential simple tools for carrying out terrorism.
Another Rocket.Chat user, Valle, showed the Guardian that he had directed his account to target Jews in an unnamed Western country with a knife.
“Go ahead, pick up a knife, stick it to the throat of a young Jew around your age when no one is paying attention, and run,” the user wrote.
Webber noted that part of the problem in raising awareness about the seriousness of the current situation is “a common misconception that (IS) has been defeated.”
However, he added that there are still branches in “Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, etc.”
