2024-01-25 14:39:05
The Wall Street Journal said that the United States secretly warned Iran that ISIS was preparing to carry out the terrorist attack that earlier this month killed more than 80 Iranians in two coordinated suicide bombings, according to American officials.
They said the secret alert came following the US obtained intelligence that ISIS’s affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, known as ISIS-K, was planning to attack Iran.
US officials said the information conveyed to Iran was specific enough regarding the location and timely enough to prove useful to Tehran in thwarting the January 3 attack or at least mitigating the number of casualties.
How did Iran act following the warning?
However, Iran failed to prevent suicide bombings in the southeastern city of Kerman, which targeted a crowd commemorating the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
Soleimani was killed in a drone attack in January 2020 near Baghdad Airport on the orders of then-President Donald Trump.
A US official said: “Before the terrorist attack launched by ISIS on January 3, 2024, in Kerman, Iran, the US government provided Iran with a special warning of the existence of a terrorist threat within Iranian borders.”
“The United States government has had a long-standing “Duty to Warn” policy implemented across administrations to warn governments of potentially deadly threats. We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innocent lives lost in terrorist attacks.
The death toll from the attack in the city of Kerman, Iran, has risen to 91 people
Officials at Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Despite the American warning, some Iranians indicated that ISIS perpetrators were linked to the United States and Israel.
At a ceremony held in Kerman to honor the victims, Major General Hussein Salami, the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said that ISIS “has disappeared these days,” considering that the jihadists “work only as mercenaries” for American and Israeli interests.
American officials refused to specify the channels used to warn Iran or reveal details of what was passed.
They did not mention whether this was the first time that Washington had sent such a warning to the Iranian regime.
A US official said that Iranian officials did not respond to the United States regarding the warning.
Several officials said it was not clear why the Iranians failed to thwart or repel the attack.
The New York Times: Terrorism is a weakness that Iran refuses to acknowledge
Duty to warn
The United States routinely shares warnings regarding potential terrorist activity with allies and partners. In some cases, it also warns potential adversaries.
In December 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Trump for sharing intelligence that helped the Kremlin thwart a plot in St. Petersburg.
The bombings in Kerman, which killed 84 Iranians and injured hundreds more, were the worst terrorist attack inside Iran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack following the attack, saying that two of its members detonated explosive belts.
ISIS Khorasan first appeared in Afghanistan in 2015 following ISIS fighters declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
It was responsible for the bombing near Kabul airport in August 2021 that killed 13 American soldiers and regarding 170 Afghan civilians during the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The group was a staunch enemy of the Taliban, and was greatly weakened during the US military presence in Afghanistan by attacks by US and Afghan government forces and by the Taliban themselves.
With the departure of US forces, ISIS-K has grown stronger.
Attacks targeting Iran
American officials say it is one of the most dangerous groups in the region, superior to Al-Qaeda and has ambitions to strike targets in the West.
Biden administration officials confirmed shortly following the January 3 attack in Iran that they had information that ISIS-K was the culprit.
But they did not reveal that the United States had prior intelligence regarding the attack or that they had informed the Iranians.
A US intelligence community directive known as the “Duty to Warn” requires spy agencies to warn targeted victims, whether US citizens or non-US citizens, if they are the target of a terrorist attack.
There are exceptions, including if the intended victims are themselves terrorists or criminals, or if issuing a warning would endanger U.S. or allied government personnel, intelligence or military operations.
In the case of Iran, Washington alerted an adversary that has armed multiple proxies, including the Houthis in Yemen as well as militias in Syria and Iraq that have carried out more than 150 attacks on US forces since mid-October.
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