Afghan men walk near the site a day after a suicide bomber triggered explosives in front of the General Directorate for Monitoring and Follow-up of Decrees and Directives, in Kabul on September 3, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility Tuesday (September 3, 2024) for this week’s suicide bombing at a prosecutor’s office in Kabul that killed at least six people and injured 13.

The group said in a statement on its news outlet Amaq that the assailant detonated his explosive-laden vest Monday (September 2, 2024) as investigators and other employees were leaving work, in an attack to avenge people detained in prisons run by the country’s Taliban government.

IS claimed the blast killed 45 people, a far higher number of victims than the death toll of six given Monday (September 2, 2024) by Taliban officials following the blast in the capital’s southwestern Qala Bakhtiar neighbourhood. Officials of the Taliban government were not immediately available for comment on the IS claim.

After the blast, Taliban security forces had cordoned off the area and prevented journalists and other people from approaching the site.

Extremists in Afghanistan have increased their assaults since the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021. Targets have included Taliban patrols and members of the country’s Shiite minority.

Six of the men injured in Monday’s (September 2, 2024) blast were taken to a surgical centre in Kabul run by the humanitarian group Emergency NGO, where two of them had to undergo major surgery, group director Dejan Panic said.

Washington:

The United States provided intelligence to Austria that helped disrupt an alleged Islamic State plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, the White House confirmed Friday.

“We work closely with partners all over the world to monitor and disrupt threats,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters

“As part of that work, the United States did share information with Austrian partners to enable the disruption of a threat to Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna,” he said.

Three alleged Islamic State sympathizers have been arrested on charges of plotting a suicide attack at the megastar’s concert in Vienna.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

“Despite not being able to conduct large-scale attacks in India, ISIL-K seeks to recruit lone actors through their India-based handlers and released a booklet in Urdu magnifying Hindu-Muslim antagonism and outlining its strategy as regards India,” U.N. reports said. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Terror group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant — Khorasan (ISIL-K) seeks to recruit lone actors through their handlers based in India, despite not being able to conduct large-scale attacks in the country, a U.N. report has said.

The 34th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team about ISIL (Da’esh), al-Qaeda and associated individuals and entities, released in United Nations on July 30, said that member states registered ongoing concern that terrorism emanating from Afghanistan will be a driver of insecurity in the region and further afield in most scenarios.

“Despite not being able to conduct large-scale attacks in India, ISIL-K seeks to recruit lone actors through their India-based handlers and released a booklet in Urdu magnifying Hindu-Muslim antagonism and outlining its strategy as regards India,” the report said.

It also said that ISIL-K remains the most serious threat in the region, projecting terror beyond Afghanistan, while “al-Qaeda exercises strategic patience”, prioritising its relationship with the Taliban.

It further said there is increased support and collaboration between Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), sharing manpower and training camps in Afghanistan and conducting more lethal attacks under the banner of Tehrik-e Jihad Pakistan (TJP).

“Therefore, TTP could transform into an umbrella organisation for other terrorist groups. In the medium term, a potential merger of TTP and AQIS could escalate the threat against Pakistan, and eventually India, Myanmar and Bangladesh,” it said.

It added that despite Taliban attempts to exercise control over al-Qaeda, greater collaboration among al-Qaeda affiliates and TTP could transform the latter into an “extra-regional threat”.

It said that in the short term, ISIL-K will preserve battle readiness, increase revenue generation, and enhance recruitment by attracting renegades from other terrorist groups and the Taliban.

ISIL-K also recruits disaffected individuals unknown to security and intelligence services, and in the midterm, will continue low-impact attacks, combined with sporadic high-impact operations against soft targets to boost its media propaganda, undermine economic and political interests, and humiliate the Taliban, the report said.

In the long term, the group will strive to drag Afghanistan into turmoil and gain and hold territorial control while expanding to northern regional countries and beyond.

Some member states estimate that ISIL-K has increased from 4,000 to 6,000 fighters despite the loss of territory and attrition among leadership, while others assess its strength as remaining at between 2,000 and 3,500 fighters, it said.

The ISIL-K strategy of embedding covertly in al-Qaeda-affiliated groups makes it difficult to estimate accurate figures and to which group fighters are loyal.

TTP has an estimated strength of between 6,000 and 6,500 fighters, accompanied by approximately 14,000 family members.

Asserting that member states continue to be highly concerned about the situation related to foreign terrorist fighters, the report said, “Several member states note an increase in travellers of Arab and Central Asian nationalities to Afghanistan and some Indian nationals.”

The report noted there is heightened concern about the terrorist threat emanating regionally from Afghanistan from ISIL-K and TTP in particular. But member states are also concerned by new inward travel to Afghanistan of some al-Qaeda personnel and training, recruitment and reorganisation activities.

Further, it said that listed terrorist groups have increased the use of anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies. “Terrorist adoption of other technologies continues at pace, making near military-grade capabilities available to sanctioned terrorist groups,” it said, adding that this includes the exploitation of 3D printing and the development of unmanned aerial and maritime weapons and surveillance systems.

Exploitation of these technologies potentially enables evasion of restrictions imposed under the ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaeda sanctions regime.

“The widespread accessibility of technology has continued, putting near-military grade capabilities into the hands of sanctioned terrorist groups,” it said.

At the corner of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman has long been seen as one of the safest, secluded countries in the Middle East, spared of militant violence that has struck elsewhere.

Six people were killed while they were offering their prayers at a Shiite Mosque in the capital this week, which changed that image and highlighted the radical Islamic State (IS) group’s strategy of striking far and wide, years after its defeat in Iraq and Syria.

Omani police said on Thursday that the three gunmen in the attack — who were killed in a subsequent gunfight — were Omani citizens, all brothers. It was a sign the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the mosque storming, is working to recruit in the sultanate, whose nationals have rarely joined international jihadi groups.

Monday night’s attack was the latest instance of IS inflicting surprise mayhem in a country where it doesn’t have a significant presence. In January, IS claimed responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 84 people in Shiite-majority Iran. In Russia in March, gunmen attacked a Moscow concert hall, leaving more than 130 dead.

Peace and stability are a top priority of Oman’s government, and the country’s tightly controlled state media hardly mentioned Monday night’s attack (July 15) and has given no details on the investigation.

Gunmen stormed the Imam Ali in the capital Muscat, packed with worshippers holding special prayers on the eve of the Shiite mourning festival of Ashoura. Many of them were Pakistanis, who make up a majority of the nearly two million migrants who contribute to Oman’s economy by working in construction and other fields.

One unidentified Pakistani worshipper at the mosque told the Times of Oman, an English-language daily, that the attack and subsequent shoot-out with Omani police lasted an hour and a half.

“During the attack, some Pakistanis inside called the Pakistani Ambassador in Muscat giving information that helped the police in their counter-assault,” a post on the social media platform X said.

Four Pakistanis and an Indian were killed, along with the three attackers, according to their governments and Omani police. “At least 28 people were wounded,” Omani police said.

IS has “mastered the art of shock tactics,” said Fawaz Gerges, an expert on jihadi groups whose 2016 book “ISIS: A History” traced the rise of the group.

Also Read: New Jersey imam shot dead outside mosque, no suspect or motive identified

Such attacks “are designed to show its resilience, that it still exists,” after a U.S-led coalition shattered its hold in Iraq and Syria, Fawaz Gerges said.

US tussle against IS

“Oman, Russia and Iran are all outside the areas where IS has its main branches and where its fighters continue to wage low-level but deadly insurgencies – the Sahel region of Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen, and its core in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq and Syria, IS fighters hiding in the desert border regions are trying to “reconstitute” with stepped-up attacks,” the U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday. “The number of its attacks – so far 153 this year – is on track to double the number from the previous year,” it said.

Also Read: Gunman kills six in attack on Afghanistan mosque: Government spokesman

“IS has to continue these types of attack to show to its followers that they are working on their apocalyptic vision of establishing a long-term caliphate,” said Myles B. Caggins, a retired Army colonel who served as spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition that fought IS in Iraq and Syria. He is now a senior fellow at the New Lines Institute.

The Islamic State group exploded onto the world stage 10 years ago when its fighters captured a large swath of Iraq and Syria and declared a “caliphate.” At its peak, it ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, and imposed a virulently radical version of Islamic law, inflicting harsh punishments of Muslims considered apostates, killing thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority and enslaving thousands of the community’s women and children.

The U.S. coalition battled IS for years, finally shattering it in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria in 2019.

Fawaz said the group is reshaping itself as a dangerous “transnational organisation.” “It is fragmented, with little central command of its various branches – but each of those affiliates is working to expand,” he said.

Shiites have long been a target of IS, which considers them heretics. But Oman, on the south-eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, was a startling target.

The sultanate maintains a strict neutrality, often acting as a go-between for Sunni Muslim powerhouse Saudi Arabia and its regional rival, Shiite-majority Iran. Most of its population are Ibadi Muslims, a more liberal offshoot of Islam predating the Sunni-Shiite split.

The goals of IS

Fawaz said the Oman-, Moscow- and Iran attacks were a sign of IS branches seeking out “targets of opportunity” where they can recruit a small number of people. “The Oman shooting may have been planned by the IS affiliate in neighbouring Yemen,” he said.

“IS has become “truly transnational. It has the ability to recruit local militants, whether from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, former Soviet Union or the Sahel,” he said. “It’s not a huge organisation with mass recruits, but its message of “hyper-sectarian, genocidal” hatred of Shiites finds an appeal among a few radicals whose attacks have a “multiplier effect,” resounding beyond the group’s current size,” he said.

“The main IS affiliates work to survive by finding pockets of instability. Its Afghanistan branch appears to be the strongest, exploiting weak control by the Taliban to carry out attacks on its security forces in regions near the Pakistani border,” Fawaz said.

Iraq and Syria have succeeded in increasing their steady attacks mainly against Syrian security forces and to a lesser degree against the better organised, U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish and Iraqi forces.

But the international campaign against IS has severely hampered its capabilities, Mr. Caggins said, not just militarily but also by cracking down on its finances and ability to spread propaganda on social media.

“It is more difficult now for it to move fighters and money between countries – but the recent attacks show it does still have some capability,” he said. Still, the group “likely will remain incapable of taking and holding territory,” Mr. Caggins said.

Islamic State militants pass a checkpoint bearing the group’s trademark black flag in the village of Maryam Begg in Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, Iraq. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Islamic State fighters have killed nearly 4,100 people in Syria since 2019 when the jihadists lost their last stronghold in the country, a war monitor said on June 29.

IS overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a so-called caliphate and launching a reign of terror in June of that year.

In March 2019, the jihadist group lost its last scraps of Syrian territory in a Kurdish-led military campaign backed by a US-led coalition, but remnants continue to launch deadly attacks from desert hideouts.

IS fighters “have killed about 4,100 people in more than 2,550 operations in areas controlled by the regime or” the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration since 2019, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a report.

Most of the victims are soldiers, government loyalists and Kurdish-led fighters, but the toll also incudes 627 civilians, the Britain-based Observatory said.

More than half of the 4,085 victims fell in Syria’s vast Badia desert, which runs from the outskirts of Damascus to the Iraqi border.

A total of “2,744 people have been killed by the IS group since its formal collapse in 2019, in various areas of the Syrian desert,” said the monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside the country.

IS fighters have killed more than 2,500 government loyalists and soldiers in the Badia since their so-called caliphate fell, according to the Observatory.

“Hardly a day goes by without bombings, ambushes, targeted operations or surprise attacks” by the jihadists in the region, the report said.

“These operations are met with periodic security campaigns carried out by regime forces and groups loyal to them deep in the desert, with… Russian warplanes targeting the desert on a near-daily basis,” it added.

The group has sustained heavy damage, losing more than 2,000 fighters including top leaders since 2019, the report found.

A United Nations report released in January said IS’s combined strength in Iraq and Syria was between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters, with the Badia serving as a logistics and operations hub for the group in Syria.

Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it broke out in March 2011 with Damascus’s brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Moscow:

Two prison guards at a jail in southern Russia have been freed without harm after they were taken hostage by Islamic State inmates, with the assailants “liquidated”, the country’s prison service said Sunday.

“During a special operation… the criminals were liquidated and the employees taken hostage were freed and were not wounded,” the service said in a statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Members of the Russian Emergencies Ministry carry out search-and-rescue operations at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a shooting attack and fire, outside Moscow, Russia, on March 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia on May 24 admitted for the first time that Islamic State coordinated the deadly concert hall attack in Moscow in March.

Moscow concert hall shooting updates

“In the course of the investigation… it has been established that the preparations, the financing, the attack and the retreat of the terrorists were coordinated via the internet by members of Khorasan Province (IS-K),” a branch of IS active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of FSB, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

IS has claimed responsibility on multiple occasions for the March 22 attack which killed more than 140 people, but Moscow has repeatedly tried to link Ukraine and the West to the attack.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an explosion in a Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul that killed at least four people.

Seven others were critically wounded in the attack on October 26, according to Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief.

Islamic State affiliates claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Friday through its news agency Aamaq, saying it “managed to leave a booby-trapped suitcase” inside a Shiite gathering place that exploded, killing and injuring about 35 people and inflicting heavy damage on a sports club.

Video taken after the explosion shows part of a building with its windows blown out and a fire inside. Shattered glass and other debris are strewn across the street below.

The scale of the damage was clearer on Friday morning. There were craters in the ground and most of the interior was gutted. Workers picked their way through boxing gloves and gym equipment on the blood-splattered floor.

The Dashti Barchi area of Kabul has been repeatedly targeted by the Islamic State group affiliate in the country, which has carried out major assaults on schools, hospitals and mosques. The group has also attacked other Shiite areas of Afghanistan in recent years. IS has been waging a campaign of violence since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

An empty classroom as schoolchildren and educators observe a moment of silence outside at the College Gaston Defferre in Marseille, southern France, on Oct. 16, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

France’s anti-terror prosecutor said Tuesday that a suspected Islamic extremist declared allegiance to the Islamic State group before fatally stabbing a teacher in a school attack last week.

The prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, said an audio recording in the suspect’s phone. In it, the alleged attacker declared allegiance to the Islamic State and expressed “his hatred for France, for the French, for democracy and the education he benefitted from in our country.”

The alleged attacker was a former pupil of the school in the northern town of Arras. A teacher was fatally stabbed in the neck and three other people injured in the assault that prompted France to raise its terror alert level and deploy extra security.

The prosecutor spoke at a press conference and took no questions.

Ricard said that shortly before the stabbing, the alleged attacker also recorded a 30-second video of himself in front of a war memorial.

In that video, the attacker “repeatedly attacked, in his own words, the values of the French. He expressed some particularly threatening views,” the prosecutor said.

A blast struck a Shia mosque during Friday prayers in Afghanistan’s north, a police spokesperson said. He confirmed there were casualties but did not give a figure or other details about the incident.

Taliban footage from the mosque in the city of Pol-e-Khomri, the provincial capital of Baghlan, showed debris strewn over a red-carpeted floor, scattered personal items and bodies covered with shrouds.

Baghlan police spokesman Sher Ahmad Borhani said he would share information about the blast later.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but blame is likely to fall on the Islamic State group, which targeted Afghanistan’s minority Shia in past large-scale attacks.

The regional affiliate of IS, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, increased attacks on mosques and minorities across the country after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

IS, which has operated in Afghanistan since 2014, is seen as the greatest security challenge facing the country’s Taliban rulers. Following their takeover, the Taliban launched a sweeping crackdown against the militant group.