The call from ISIS was made less than a week after the attack on a theater in Moscow that left at least 143 dead.
The spokesperson for the ISIS group, Abu Hudhayfah Al-Ansari, called on Thursday for individual attacks in Europe and the United States to support Muslims in the war in Gaza and congratulated those responsible for the attack last Friday in Moscow. The call was made less than a week after the attack on a theater in Moscow that left at least 143 dead.
In a 41-minute “reminder message” distributed on Telegram and whose authenticity has not yet been verified, the terrorist organization – also known as the Islamic State – said that what is being done to Muslims in Gaza now is “what our brothers in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Sinai (Egypt), and Yemen have suffered double a few years ago.”
“We thank the soldiers of the caliphate for their effort and ask God for their success in reaching the lands of Palestine to fight the Jews face to face in a religious war that ends them all. In this regard, we urge lone wolves to target Jews and Crusaders everywhere, especially in the United States and Europe,” he said in the message – originally in Arabic – distributed by the Al Furqan production company, the propaganda arm of the group.
He labeled the war in Gaza as a “wound of the Muslims,” in which fighting is needed “and not just slogans and chants,” according to the speech, also published on the occasion of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and to commemorate ten years since the establishment of the “caliphate.”
“And the fight against the Jews is not fulfilled except by fighting their allies: the infidels and Crusaders everywhere. From that, we started the united invasion launched to support our families in Gaza, which represents the brotherhood among the faithful,” he said, as reported by the EFE agency.
Al Ansari thus reiterated his message spread on January 4 in which he called for attacks against the United States, Europe, and the entire world, and in which he asked to “make no distinction between atheists, civilians, or military personnel.”
Throughout the speech, Al Ansari pointed out that after the attack in Iran last January, one of the worst in its history that left more than 90 dead, the Islamic State turned against “Russia, the crusade,” a term ISIS uses to refer to Christians.
The spokesperson described the attack in Moscow, which left 143 dead, as “a bloody attack by a group of lions of the caliphate” to “avenge Muslims and discipline infidels” and that does not need “justification.”
The jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall, 20 kilometers from the center of Moscow, hours after the shooting. It also released a video of the massacre from inside, showing a group of people shooting and slaughtering attendees at the concert of the Russian rock group PikNik.
Among the detainees are four terrorists who participated in the attack, which occurred weeks after the United States and the United Kingdom warned of the possibility of an attack in Russia.
“We do not need to give legitimate explanations when attacking a country that always fought against Muslims before and now. And we continue to capture and kill their soldiers in Syria, and before we defeated their plane in Sinai,” he added.
In this way, he referred to Russia’s intervention in the war in Syria since 2015, as well as to the downing claimed by the Islamic State of the Russian Metrojet plane that departed from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, also in 2015, which left more than 220 dead.
Additionally, the spokesperson for ISIS called on “confused (Muslim) youth” in the West to migrate to areas where the organization is present, which extend from West Africa to Asia, with the aim of “waging jihad.”
“We repeat our call to Muslims around the world to join your brothers in jihad (…) I address this message especially to the confused youth in apostate countries who feel bad about the misfortune of their nation,” he said.
He assured that if these young people “do not know where to go,” they have the opportunity to “live” and go to “battlefields in the lands of the Islamic State.”
Al Ansari alluded to the fact that before, when ISIS self-proclaimed the “caliphate” at the end of June 2014, they called for migration to Syria and Iraq, but “today the lands of the caliphate extend from West Africa to East Asia.”
He also urged jihadists imprisoned in jails worldwide to be “patient,” while vowing revenge against the Syrian Democratic Forces, units mostly formed by Syrian Kurds and backed by the United States, who manage prisons with fighters and camps with relatives linked to the Islamic State in northeastern Syria.
