Islamic State planning attack on Britain, official warns
European counterterrorism expert tells CNN that IS has instructed British members to return home to carry out a strike
A senior European counterterrorism official says intelligence points to Britain as the next target for the Islamic State group, as a “follow-up” to the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
The official told CNN this week that according to the intelligence, it appears that Islamic State fighters from Britain have been told by their superiors to return home in order to carry out a terror attack.
According to CNN, there is no clear indication of how soon or where the group is planning to attack. But, the official said, the recent vote by the British parliament to extend its anti-IS air strikes to Syria as well as Iraq has exacerbated fears that such an attack will indeed take place.
Some 800 Britons had left the country to fight for IS or opposition forces in Syria, the Daily Mail reported, with as many as 400 returning to the UK. British MPs were told during last week’s debate on expanding airstrikes that seven IS terror plots in the UK had been foiled in the past year, and intelligence indicated that the plots were being devised in Syria.
A Turkish official told CNN last month that British IS member Aine Lesley Davis was detained in Istanbul on the same day as the Paris attacks, intercepted while heading to Europe “to deliver orders on planned terror attacks.”
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet said that Davies was arrested after Turkish and British intelligence worked together to track an IS member linked to British extremist Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed in the media as “Jihadi John.”
According to Hurriyet, Turkey gave Britain and the US intelligence on Emwazi’s possible whereabouts hours before November 12 airstrikes in Raqqa, the nominal IS capital in Syria, which the US said had killed the British terrorist.