Red Fort blast carried out by Al-Qaida offshoot: UN report
The explosion near the iconic Red Fort killed at least 15 persons and injured more than a dozen
The November 2025 terror attack near Delhi’s Red Fort was carried out by Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), according to a latest report of the United Nations Security Council.
The finding provides a clear international attribution of the deadly attack to the Al-Qaida offshoot and underscores the emergence of a more decentralised terror architecture in the region.
The report, submitted pursuant to UNSC Resolution 2734 (2024) on ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities, says AQIS has continued to evolve from a fragmented outfit into a regional terrorist entity. Rather than operating through large formations, the group has developed logistics and financial networks built around small, scattered and decentralised cells.
Delhi: NIA chargesheets 3 more accused in Red Fort blast case
“The attack in November 2025 on the Red Fort in Delhi was officially attributed to AQIS,” the report says.
The assessment assumes significance nearly nine months after the blast, which plunged the national capital into panic and triggered a major security response.
The explosion near the iconic Red Fort killed at least 15 persons and injured more than a dozen, prompting an immediate security lockdown across parts of the capital.
The attack marked Delhi’s first major terror strike in more than a decade and revived memories of some of the darkest episodes in the capital’s recent history.
The last major terror attack in Delhi before the Red Fort blast was the 2011 Delhi High Court bombing, which killed 14 persons. In September 2008, a series of synchronised explosions in Karol Bagh, Connaught Place and Greater Kailash left 25 persons dead.
The choice of location also carried a grim historical resonance. The Red Fort was itself targeted in December 2000, when Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists carried out an attack, killing two soldiers and a civilian.
The November 2025 Red Fort attack, however, demonstrated that the threat had not disappeared from India’s urban centres.
The UN assessment now adds an important dimension to the investigation, highlighting how AQIS has adapted its operating model.
The shift towards small, dispersed cells and clandestine financial and logistical networks could make the group harder to detect and disrupt before an attack.
For India’s security agencies, the finding is likely to intensify scrutiny of AQIS-linked networks and their potential links with sleeper modules, financing channels and logistical facilitators operating across the region.
