Two Weeks After The Moscow Terror Attack: What Do We Know About ISIS-K and The CIA's Footprint?
It has been two weeks since the horrific terror attack near Moscow that left over 140 people dead, and while the U.S. was quick to describe this as an open-and-shut case that they blamed on the group 'ISIS-K', countless questions remained about the four suspected gunmen who were caught fleeing on their way to the Ukrainian border.
ISIS-K is billed as a branch of the Islamic State operating out of Afghanistan that has its sights set on global terror, and could pose a threat to the U.S. in a way that the original ISIS never has. But the group also has the CIA's footprint all over it, from its leader, who has a history of working with CIA proxies in Afghanistan, to its current members, who include Afghan spies and soldiers who once worked with the U.S.
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It is April 5, 2024, which means that today marks two weeks since the devastating terror attack that left more than 140 people dead in the Moscow region. As Russia’s investigation continues, I wanted to take a look back at what led up to this attack, and what we know about the group who is blamed for carrying it out…
Because if you ask the U.S., no investigation is needed here. It’s an open and shut case… as least that’s according to White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby who claimed within a matter of hours of the attack that Ukraine wasn’t responsible for it… and then as soon as ISIS took responsibility… latched onto that theory, and said… case closed.
They say this attack was carried out by a branch of the Islamic State called ISIS-K that operates out of Afghanistan, and according to the New York Times, the U.S. was well aware that a terror attack was being planned, with Moscow as the target. But they didn’t share all of the information with Russia, because Washington is fighting a proxy war against Russia right now, and as the report described it, the Biden Administration held back information “out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.”
But the U.S. Embassy in Russia did issue an alert on March 7th, specifically to Americans in the country, telling them to avoid any large gatherings, including concerts. That was ahead of Russia’s presidential election, which was held over the course of the weekend. It was also when Ukraine was ramping up attacks on Russia’s border region.
The attack they warned about would eventually happen on March 22nd, when four gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall, northwest of Moscow, and carried out a mass shooting, before setting the hall on fire.
By the next day, the Islamic State had claimed responsibility, even releasing a photo of four men with their faces blurred standing in front of an ISIS flag.
The only problem? Well, as the internet was quick to point out… the individuals were holding up the wrong hand...
Oh, and instead of taking their own lives as suicide bombers, and going up in flames in that fire they set… they ran… TO UKRAINE
I know that the West is acting as if Russia is on some conspiracy trip for questioning whether Ukrainian intelligence played a role in orchestrating this attack… but seriously… in what world do you run towards an active combat zone, unless you have some kind of contact on the other side, to help organize a window for you to flee to safety??
So, what do we know about this group ISIS-K, who the U.S. was quick to blame for the attack?
They’re billed as the branch of the Islamic State operating out of Afghanistan. Some articles even describe them as the most powerful branch, so strong that they’ve beat the Taliban because the Taliban doesn’t want to mess with them.
Now, if the story of an Islamic extremist group focused on carrying out attacks beyond the Middle East sounds familiar… it’s because ISIS-K isn’t the first version of this group, or even the first version that has caught Western attention.
Let’s go back to 2014 at the HEIGHT of ISIS propaganda hysteria… As terrifying as the group was, their threat seemed to be confined to Iraq and Syria. That was, until the media started warning about this newly formed “Khorasan Group” that they claimed could one day pose a threat beyond the Middle East—specifically, to the U.S.
As NBC News reported at the time, just a week after they made headlines on the international stage, they had already been “billed as potentially an even bigger threat to the U.S. than ISIS.”
They were described as a small group made up of hardened al-Qaeda fighters who were based in Syria. But unlike their fellow so-called Islamic extremists—they had a bigger vision than just waging war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his forces… … ironically, the same leader the U.S. was trying to overthrow, but no matter…
This Khorasan Group was focused on attacking the West… and it was led by a 33-year-old man described as a “9/11 insider,” who was in Syria working with Al-Nusra Front… a group CNN described as not being targeted by U.S. strikes in Syria… even though the U.S. had it “blacklisted as a foreign terror organization linked to al Qaeda in Iraq.”
Apparently, his decision to leave al-Nusra and form a group of his own was his fatal flaw, because according to reports, he was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Syria in July 2015.
Oh, and another note… let us never forget that the Obama Administration sold the narrative that they were just training “moderate rebels” in Syria to go after Assad, and then acted surprised when the program was a complete failure, and the trainees ran off to join al-Nusra Front, aka ISIS, and took their weapons and supplies with them.
As Russian President Putin noted back in 2014… the Obama Administration claimed they were concerned about ISIS, while continuing to send arms to the region, with the aim of overthrowing Assad:
“Another threat President Obama mentioned was ISIS. Well, who on earth armed them? Who armed the Syrians that were fighting Assad? Who created the necessary political/informational climate that facilitated this situation? Who pushed for the delivery of arms to the area? Do you really no understand as to who is fighting in Syria? They are mercenaries, mostly. Do you understand they are paid money? Mercenaries fight for whichever side pays more.” – Russian President Vladimir Putin, 2014
So, the Khorasan Group died out… but the idea of a need for a group of Islamic extremists who were looking to sow terror beyond the Middle East, did not. That’s where the Islamic State - Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K comes in…
The group was reported to have been formed as early as 2015, with a presence in Afghanistan. While they carried out of a handful of regional attacks over the years, they gained recognition from the West in 2021, when they took responsibility for the suicide bomber attack on the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 American military personnel and nearly 170 Afghans during the U.S. withdrawal from the country.
The mastermind of that attack was reportedly ISIS-K’s new leader, who would have been 26 years old at the time. CNN claimed they interviewed him days before that attack… which, if that sounds sketchy, it’s because it is…
See, the U.S. already knew him well, as Investigative Journalist Seth Harp pointed out back in July 2023… The leader of "ISIS-K" was a contractor at Bagram Airfield, who then worked security for two Vice Presidents in Afghanistan who were known for their work as CIA proxies…
Those details have since been scrubbed from his Wikipedia page…
But thanks to the work of Afghan journalists like Bilal Sarwary, the I.D. cards showing that the leader of ISIS-K was a security contractor for the U.S. client state in Afghanistan, and that his license to deal weapons was issued by the NATO-backed Afghan government… live forever on the internet.
So, the U.S. Military pulls out of Afghanistan… the NATO-backed government falls in record time… and the Taliban takes over. We may have thought that the U.S. was done. But if we’ve learned anything it’s that the U.S. loves a good proxy group—and in Afghanistan, they have ISIS-K.
As the Wall Street Journal reported back in October 2021, the U.S. Military’s withdrawal left former members of Afghanistan’s U.S.-trained intelligence service and elite military units in a difficult spot, as they has been abandoned by their American bosses and were now being hunted by the Taliban… so they enlisted in the only force currently challenging the country’s new rulers: the Islamic State.
They also noted that… “The Taliban have long alleged that Islamic State-Khorasan Province was a creation of Afghanistan’s intelligence service and the U.S. that aimed to sow division within the Islamist insurgency, a claim denied by Washington and by Kabul’s former government.”
But the U.S. doesn’t want you to talk about that, and they also would prefer that you ignore the fact that ISIS-K’s main enemies are apparently the Syrian Government, the Taliban, Iran, Russia, and even China—however, never Israel, as it commits genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
One of the things that Russia has been emphasizing in the aftermath of last month’s terror attack near Moscow is that while it may have been ISIS-K linked militants who carried out the killings… the bigger question right now is who ordered the attack? Who funded these militants and provided everything from weapons to transportation?
The Russian Investigative Committee has come out and said it has established links between the suspects who carried out the attack, and Ukrainian nationalists.
The U.S. acts as if this is the craziest claim they’ve ever heard, with the establishment media spinning articles about how they just don’t understand why Russia would look at Ukraine… in the aftermath of a terror attack targeting Russian civilians.
But Russia isn’t just looking at Ukraine. They’re also looking at the U.S. and France and all of the usual suspects who are known for working with extremists to carry out their aims in proxy wars around the world.
Because it’s not just the so-called Islamic extremists in Syria who operate in the United States’ illegally held territories and target the same government the U.S. wants to target… It’s also the neo-Nazi extremists in Ukraine, who the U.S. has been funding and arming for over a decade.
In the same way that the Biden Administration warned that the Nord Stream pipelines would be no more, months before they were mysteriously attacked in a coordinated effort that U.S. still can’t seem to figure out…
Maidan Midwife and Victoria Nuland warned that thanks to U.S. funding, Russia would be facing some quote “nasty surprises” this year, just one month before the terror attack in Moscow.
Did she know what was being planned? Is the Biden Administration so desperate with Ukraine losing on the battlefield, and facing a weapons and manpower shortage that NATO can’t keep up with, that they would turn to supporting terror attacks as a way to try to sow divide in Russia. We may not have a concrete answer to those questions yet… but we do know it isn’t something the U.S. hasn’t done before—and that’s something everyone should be talking about.
SOURCE LINKS:
28 March 2024: US didn’t share full intelligence on Moscow terror attack – NYT
2 April 2024: How ISIS-K killed Americans, beat the Taliban, and massacred 140 people in Moscow
26 March 2024: The Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based affiliate is emerging as a global menace
19 Aug. 2014: Islamic State ‘has 50,000 fighters in Syria’
23 Sept. 2014: ISIS Isn't Alone: Khorasan Group May Pose Bigger Threat to U.S.
24 Sept. 2014: What’s the difference between ISIS, al-Nusra and the Khorasan Group?
22 July 2015: Syria conflict: US strike 'kills Khorasan Group leader'
16 Sept. 2015: General Austin: Only '4 or 5' US-Trained Syrian Rebels Fighting ISIS
4 Feb. 2022: Single suicide bomber killed US troops and Afghans in ISIS-K attack at Kabul airport, Pentagon finds
31 Oct. 2021: Left Behind After U.S. Withdrawal, Some Former Afghan Spies and Soldiers Turn to Islamic State
28 March 2024: Investigators establish link between Moscow terrorist attack suspects and Ukrainian nationalists
1 April 2024: Russia to probe possible US links to terror attacks