ISIS-K, the Islamic State group's branch in Afghanistan that has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow Friday, "views the entire world as its enemy," and the United States should be watching carefully in the event of an attack on the homeland, defense and counterterrorism analyst John Rossomando said on Newsmax Saturday.
"You just had the recent statement by the general head of CENTCOM warning that ISIS-K, which is the brass based out of Afghanistan, would be in a position to strike at the U.S. and allied targets," Rossomando, who appeared with retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt on Newsmax's "Wake Up America," commented Saturday.
Thursday, Gen. Michael Kurilla, who heads the U.S. military's Central Command, told a House committee that the Islamic State group's branch "retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning," reports The New York Times.
ISIS-K, founded in 2015 by members of Pakistan's Taliban, was behind the Abbey Gate suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians.
The United States had warned Russia about the possibility of an attack, according to an official speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official said Washington had warned Moscow "appropriately" in recent weeks of the possibility of an attack.
Rossamondo told Newsmax that the warnings, despite the United States' adversarial relationship with Russia, were because America is interested in"humanitarian peace."
Friday night's shootings at the Russian suburban concert hall are "very reminiscent of the Bataclan theater massacre in Paris in 2015," he added.
Holt, meanwhile, said it remains a "presumption" that the Islamic State group was behind the concert hall attack, but "ISIS is also at war with another country called Iran, and it could be an anti-Russian play" happening.
Russia is reporting that the attackers who were captured had Tajikistan passports, so "it's very possible that they could be members of ISIS, of course."
However, there are Chechnyans who are against Moscow and not pleased with Russian President Vladimir Putin's reelection, and there are "elements in Ukraine," said Holt.
He added that as there is a "complete Russian offensive" going on in Ukraine, "it does not seem that anything like this would be in [the Ukrainians'] interest."
Still, he predicted Moscow would "really tighten things up" and take the concert hall attack out on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the tide of the war is returning to Russia, with the attacks growing stronger, said Holt.
"Ukraine has never sustained a missile attack like the one it did on Thursday," he said. "They've also upped the lethality of the munitions ... We know their objective is to take back Kharkiv. They probably want to take Odesa as well and link up with Transnistria."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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