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U.S. Secretly Alerted Iran Ahead of Islamic State Terrorist Attack
(Wall Street Journal) Michael R. Gordon - The U.S. secretly warned Iran that Islamic State was preparing to carry out the terrorist attack on Jan. 3 that killed more than 80 Iranians in a pair of coordinated suicide bombings, U.S. officials said. The U.S. had acquired intelligence that Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), was plotting to attack Iran. 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 or at least mitigating the casualty toll. Iran, however, failed to prevent the suicide bombings, which targeted a crowd commemorating the anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, killed in a U.S. drone attack in January 2020.