Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

Is the Islamic State Taking Its Fight to the Skies?

Foreign Policy: Growing evidence that a Russian charter jet may have been downed by a bomb raises troubling questions about whether the Islamic State has adopted a new strategy of carrying out mass casualty terror attacks outside the borders of its self-declared caliphate — and about why one of the Middle East’s best intelligence services failed to stop the plot.

Until now, U.S. officials have maintained that Islamic State militants — unlike al Qaeda extremists — are focused more on seizing and holding territory than on staging high-profile attacks on airliners or other targets abroad. But Western officials have harbored fears that the group could one day emulate al Qaeda and attempt to stage a spectacular attack, taking advantage of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq to prepare the operation.

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