Tajikistan: Islamic State Jihadis Plotted To Poison Food Served to Attendees At Nowruz Festival

☪ “Court in Tajikistan jails over 30 people for attempted mass poisoning linked to ISIS offshoot,” Reuters, February 14, 2025:

A court in Tajikistan has handed down prison sentences of between eight and 20 years to more than 30 people it convicted of trying to poison attendees of a festival last year, the prosecutor general’s office said on Friday.

A source in the Tajik security services told Reuters the convicted people were all tied to Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghan offshoot of Islamic State.

Islamic State, the terrorist group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for a mass shooting at a concert hall near Moscow last year which left 145 people dead.

👉 Targeting a festival

Tajik prosecutors said the defendants had attempted to poison food served to attendees of a Nowruz, or New Year, festival last March in Vahdat, a small city east of the capital Dushanbe….

Jihad poisoning plots are not new. Al-Qaeda has long considered the contamination of food as a jihad mass murder tactic. And in 2017, the Islamic State called on Muslims to poison food in Western supermarkets

👉 And it has happened at least twice in Britain:

• UK: Shop-owners sold chocolate cake sprinkled with human feces
• UK: Muslim who sprayed food with feces and urine can’t be deported

Also:

• Food jihad? Muslim woman puts needles in meat in Canada

• In India in July 2019, Muslims plotted to poison food offered in a Hindu temple that was to be consumed by at least 40,000 devotees. 'Rice Jihad'

• We also know that jihadis have long wanted to poison the water supply. As far back as 2002, the feds arrested two jihadis who were carrying plans about how to poison water supplies. In 2003, al-Qaeda threatened to poison water supplies in Western countries. In 2011, a jihadi in Spain likewise planned to poison water supplies.

• And in May 2013, seven Muslim “chemical engineers” were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir, a key supply of water for Boston, after midnight. Only months later and indirectly did we hear that it was a “criminal matter.” A month later, locks were cut at the aqueduct that supplies water to Greater Boston.

• Also in May 2013, jihadists were caught in Canada who had considered poisoning air and water to murder up to 100,000 people. In October 2013, the FBI was investigating a possible water supply threat in Wichita. In January 2014, a Muslim broke into a water treatment plant in New Jersey.