Assault rifles, assault rifle frames, a sniper rifle, handguns, ammunition of various calibres, a tactical vest, radios and an official ISIS flag. This is not a props list from a war film. It is what police seized from 12 locations across Skopje, including Singelic, Chair and Brest, in a joint operation by the Interior Ministry, the National Security Agency (ANB) and the Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption.

Six people searched, five detained, three under investigation. The main suspect, K.I. (34), faces a criminal complaint for terrorism and for the unauthorised manufacture, possession, brokering and trafficking of weapons or explosives. B.A. (24) and E.S. (30) are charged over the weapons. Prosecutors requested 30 days' detention for all three.

According to the Interior Ministry, K.I. became active back in 2023, in a branch with an ISIS ideological template. He indoctrinated young people, spread extreme and radical propaganda and acquired firearms. Three years. How many young people passed through his hands in that time, nobody is saying yet.

Imams, kidnappings and electricity for crypto

The ANB describes the group as a religious-radical outfit linked to transnational criminal organisations: violence, extortion, kidnapping, loan-sharking, drug and arms trafficking. "The Islamic radical element is a trait shared by most members of the group - they are ideological followers of radical imams who support and promote international terrorist organisations," the agency said. Some of those arrested, it added, have close ties to foreign terrorist fighters from the country and the region.

Among the sniper rifle and the flag was a detail that sounds almost comic: the searches found electricity being used without authorisation to "mine" cryptocurrency. Radical in word - while someone else pays the power bill.

The most important sentence in the whole statement, though, is a different one. The ANB says that religious facilities where radical Islam is practised, and online radicalisation, are "the initial triggers for recruiting young people." If the services know which facilities and which channels those are, the question is simple: what is being done there, before someone gets to a sniper rifle?

The trail was in the court files

Investigators didn't reach the group from a standing start. The prosecution says the investigation is based on evidence from an earlier pre-investigation procedure, on documents and evidence from a case already at trial, and on evidence obtained through international legal assistance. In other words, part of the trail was already sitting in a courtroom, and part came from abroad.

This is not the first case of its kind. In May 2026, the organised crime prosecutor's office announced that five people were under investigation for "terrorist organisation," and in December 2024 four people from Gostivar and Struga were detained on the same suspicion. The Balkans know the story of foreign fighters, and of those who came back, all too well. So the question after every operation like this is the same: will it end with a verdict - or just with another photo of seized weapons laid out on a table?