ISIS Warn That London 'next to be attacked'
Images threatening attacks in London and other major world capitals have been posted on messaging app Telegram, according to analysts at SITE Intelligence Group.
One picture chillingly shows New York’s Statue of Liberty engulfed in flames but with the caption “Washington soon” - referring to the US capital 225 miles away. The threat comes as security at British churches is being ramped up amid a new terror alert after ISIS knifemen forced a French priest to kneel before slitting his throat on camera.
The source of the threats against London and Washington and whether they are credible is unknown. It comes after ISIS terrorists forced an elderly parish priest to kneel before filming themselves slitting his throat.
Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was made to get to his knees before he was brutally butchered at the Church of the Gambetta in Normandy today, says a nun who escaped the attack.
British counter-terror police have now “circulated specific advice” to churches across the UK amid fears of a similar attack. Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: “Following recent events in France, we are reiterating our protective security advice to Christian places of worship and have circulated specific advice today.
“We are also taking this opportunity to remind them to review their security arrangements as a precaution. He added: “There is no specific intelligence relating to attacks against the Christian community in the UK. “However, as we have seen, Daesh and other terrorist groups have targeted Christian as well as Jewish and other faith groups in the West and beyond. While the threat from terrorism remains unchanged at severe we urge the public to be vigilant.”
Father Hamel’s two murderers - one of whom has been named as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche - captured the slaying on a mobile phone, according to Sister Danielle, who was one of several worshippers taken hostage during morning mass. They then performed a 'sermon' around the altar in Arabic - as armed cops rushed to the scene and terrified members of the congregation fled for their lives.
Before his death, Father Hamel courageously tried to defend his parishioners, said the distraught nun, who raised the alarm after fleeing the church. "They [the terrorists] forced him to kneel and he tried to defend himself and that is how the drama started," she told RMC radio. Speaking to BFM TV, she added that the two men 'recorded themselves' carrying out the murder and did 'a sort of sermon around the altar in Arabic'. "It's a horror," she said of the attack, which ended in the knifemen being shot dead by police after running out of the church shouting 'Allahu Akbar'.
Sister Danielle said she fled the parish church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the northern city of Rouen, as one of the terrorists was slitting the priest's throat.
The official international terrorism threat level in the UK is 'severe' - meaning an attack is seen as "highly likely". Earlier this year it was revealed that authorities have disrupted seven plots in the UK in the previous 18 months.
Authorities are "working tirelessly" to confront the terrorist threat, the country's most senior counter-terrorism officer has said. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said Scotland Yard is "constantly testing" the preparedness to respond to an attack.
The US government's advice to its citizens travelling to the UK warns that Britain is "potentially vulnerable to attacks from transnational terrorist organisations".
"Credible information indicates terrorist groups continue plotting possibly near term attacks in Europe," it added.
