A former top general in the United States issued a warning on Sunday that radical Islamic terrorist organization, ISIS, is once again gaining strength. And here’s the problem with all of these groups. Unless you begin to dismantle their ideology and start fighting against the wickedness it promotes in the realm of philosophy and belief, they will continue to come back. We have to face the facts that, like it or not, ISIS and other terrorist organizations have waged a holy war against the rest of the world. Simply killing all the bad guys will not suffice because the ideas behind their religion still exist and continue to radicalize new generations of young men and women.
The general, who used to be the head of the military’s Middle East command, stated that the threat that is being posed by ISIS is now rising from the ashes, a comment that comes just days after the organization claimed responsibility for an attack that took place in Russia that left dozens of folks dead.
According to The Epoch Times:
Retired U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie told ABC News on March 31 that Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) will be able to conduct those types of attacks because no pressure is being applied “in their homeland and their base.” ISIS-K, reportedly based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has claimed that it conducted the attack in a Moscow concert hall that left at least 144 people dead in late March.
“Unfortunately, we no longer place that pressure on them, so they’re free to gain strength, they’re free to plan, they’re free to coordinate and to outreach and hit us in our homelands,” Mr. McKenzie went on to say. “So, you’d much rather be playing an away game than a home game. We’ve chosen to play a home game.”
When he was asked by ABC News host Martha Raddatz concerning whether the threat posed by ISIS would be different if American military forces were not yanked out of Afghanistan by President Joe Biden in 2021, and had left a force of 2,500 troops in the region, the former general answered that things “would be very different.”
“Leaving 2,500 troops, along with our NATO partners, who would have left 4,000 or 5,000 troops, we would have been able to continue to work against ISIS, which was the principal reason we’re in Afghanistan, to prevent attacks in our homeland,” Mr. McKenzie explained. “I think we might be in a different place now. I think we might actually be safer now than we [were].”
Now, in Afghanistan, the United States has no capacity to strike or evaluate the country, he said, adding that “ISIS there is able to grow unabated” because “there’s no pressure on them.”
“And, again, our operating theory has always been, with violent extremists, you want local security forces to be able to control them, and then you want them to not be able to establish the connective tissue internationally that allows them to carry out external attacks abroad—and it’s very hard to do that in Afghanistan, where you just don’t have the ability to sense, you don’t have the ability to strike, and very limited resources,” he commented.
On March 22, attackers opened fire with automatic weapons on concertgoers in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, killing at least 144 people. ISIS, as it claimed responsibility, released footage from the attack. The United States and France have said that intelligence suggests that the group was indeed behind the attack, in which at least 144 people were killed and an estimated 550 were wounded.
The motive for the attack is not clear. Russia, along with U.S. and Syrian government forces, played a major role in defeating ISIS in Syria. After being forced out of Syria, its fighters scattered and different branches emerged, including an Afghan branch, ISIS-Khorasan, which seeks a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran, Reuters reported.
“I think the threat is growing,” Mr. McKenzie stated back on March 31. “It began to grow as soon as we left Afghanistan and took pressure off ISIS-K. So I think we should expect further attempts of this nature against the United States as well as our partners and other nations abroad. I think this is inevitable.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters during a briefing held last week that the U.S. passed a written warning to Russian security forces informing them of an extremist attack on large gatherings in the city of Moscow, which ended up being one of many that were provided in advance of the attack that occurred.
“It is abundantly clear that ISIS was solely responsible for the horrific attack in Moscow last week,” he explained during the press conference. “In fact, the United States tried to help prevent this terrorist attack and the Kremlin knows this.”
The warnings came after the Investigative Committee in Russia stated it discovered evidence that the four men who executed the attack on March 22 were connected to “Ukrainian nationalists” and had been paid via cash and cryptocurrency from Ukraine. However, Kirby said this was not the case and those claims were nothing more than propaganda.
The United States, he said, provided multiple advance warnings to Russian authorities of extremist attacks on concerts and large gatherings in Moscow, including in writing on March 7 at 11:15 a.m., to Russia’s security services.
“Following normal procedures and through established channels that have been employed many times previously … [the United States passed] a warning in writing to Russian security services,” Mr. Kirby explained.
Back in March, the U.S. Embassy located in Moscow sent out a warning concerning an “imminent” terrorist threat, though, at the time, there weren’t many additional details provided.
“The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours,” the U.S. Embassy warned in a statement posted on its website back on March 8, the report concluded.
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