“Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, said there was a “heightened [IS] threat to the west during the holiday season”.
“ISKP has begun setting the information space by releasing threatening propaganda images depicting one of its fighters holding a gun beside a Christmas tree, another urging supporters to follow European terrorists who had conducted recent attacks in Europe,” he said.
Though the amateurish IS imagery might suggest unseriousness, there is more than ample reasoning to take the threats very seriously.
ISKP carried out a lethal attack on a Moscow theater in March that brutally killed 145 people. Afterwards, the terror group vowed to bring the same level of carnage to an American target. It then released a poster featuring the US Capitol building and the message: “You are next.”
Webber said recent plots involving Somali IS planners show the group has multiple, international vectors of attack.
“The Islamic State’s Somalia branch has been linked to plotters in Sweden, for instance, where the branch’s leader lived for a time,” he said. “IS-Somalia was likewise linked to a bomb plot in Italy.”"
The Guardian, 23 November 2024