IED event in Azerbaijan on Tue 27th January 2026

Authorities in Azerbaijan said on Tuesday they had arrested three individuals planning an attack on a foreign embassy in the capital, Baku, at the instructions of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghan offshoot of Islamic State.In a statement, the State Security Service said the three men, whom it named, had conspired with members of ISIS-K, obtained weapons and planned to attack a foreign embassy before they were apprehended by security forces.

The statement did not name the foreign embassy. One of the men was born in 2000, and the other two in 2005.Islamic State-Khorasan (ISKP), or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, which left at least 145 people dead.

There have been several Islamic State-linked plots foiled in the majority-Muslim regions of Russia, where the group is listed as a banned terrorist organisation, and in Central Asia.Azerbaijan, a South Caucasus country of some 10 million people bordering Russia and Iran, is a secular country with a predominantly Muslim population, the majority of whom are Shiites.

In its statement, Azerbaijani authorities said the suspects had been arrested on charges of "preparation for terrorism" on the basis of religious hostility. They said the investigation was ongoing.In a separate case, an Azerbaijani court sentenced a man affiliated with ISIS-K to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges last October after finding him guilty of plotting an attack on a synagogue in Baku with a Molotov cocktail in December 2024.ISIS-KThe ISKP/ISIS-K was officially formed in 2015 when breakaway militants from the Tehrik‑e‑Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al Qaeda and former Taliban fighters from Afghanistan came together under Hafiz Saeed Khan, a Pakistani militant with ties to the TTP. The name “Khorasan” refers to a historical region that spans parts of Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, reflecting the group’s ambition to carve out a caliphate in the Afghan‑Pakistan borderlands.ISKP’s core operations have been centred in eastern Afghanistan, but it maintains networks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar. It is estimated that ISKP has between 4,000 and 6,000 members. In 2022, ISKP attacked a Shia mosque in Peshawar, killing 63 and injuring 196, and in July 2023, ISKP also detonated a suicide bomb at a political rally in Khar, Bajaur, killing at least 63 and injuring about 200.In February 2025, a suicide blast at the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in Nowshera that killed at least eight people and injured around 20 others has been attributed to ISKP.