The confidential alert came after the U.S. acquired intelligence that Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, was plotting to attack Iran, they said.
American officials said the information passed to Iran was specific enough about the location and sufficiently timely that it might have proved useful to Tehran in thwarting the attack on Jan. 3 or at least mitigating the casualty toll.
Iran, however, failed to prevent the suicide bombings in the southeastern town of Kerman, which targeted a crowd that was commemorating the anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force. Soleimani was killed in a January 2020 drone attack near the Baghdad airport ordered by then-President Donald Trump.
[The source says that this is part of the “duty to warn” doctrine on terror attacks, even to assist unfriendly countries. It’s good policy in this case, because Iran would have kept blaming the US and Israel for this attack, which may be why State and/or the intel community leaked it now. ISIS took credit for the attack a day later, but the Iranian regime hasn’t entirely backed away from their accusation that we were behind it. — Ed]
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