Isis urges jihadists to strike Europe and Israel while West is distracted by Ukraine

The Islamic State terror network has declared a new “global offensive” against Europe and Israel in a bid to avenge the death of its leader in a US special forces raid earlier this year.

In a message timed for the holy month of Ramadan, the group told its jihadist supporters to take advantage of the West’s distraction with the war in Ukraine to stage terror attacks while “the crusaders are fighting each other”.

In a lengthy speech leaked online, Abu-Omar al-Muhajir, Isis’s new spokesman, said that Russia’s invasion was an “opportunity’’ for the group as non-Muslim nations were “preoccupied” with the conflict.

He also encouraged militants to retaliate for the death of the group’s leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, who was killed in February during a US special forces operation in Syria.

 “We announce, relying on God, a blessed campaign to take revenge,” he said in an audio message circulated on the Telegram messaging app.

 “Fight them all and Allah will answer and punish them at your hands,” he said, referring to the group’s enemies.

The speech comes after Isis sympathisers carried out two deadly terror attacks in Israel, killing a total of six people in the cities of Beer Sheva and Hadera last month.

Last week Israeli police announced the arrest of an Isis-linked Palestinian in connection to a further three murders, including that of an elderly Jerusalem couple in their home in 2019.

In the latest message, Al-Muhajir called on the group’s followers to “arm themselves with weapons and carry out further attacks”. Echoing previous Isis statements, he added that Jerusalem could only be liberated through return of their so-called “caliphate”.

Having been defeated militarily in Iraq and Syria by 2019, Isis also lost their founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in October that year during a raid by US Delta Force commandos in northwest Syria.

Al-Qurayshi, a former soldier in Saddam Hussein’s army, was named as al-Baghdadi’s successor as the group continued to wage a sporadic terror campaign in its former heartlands as well as inspiring attacks by individuals and affiliate groups abroad.

However, his hiding place in northern Syria was discovered and became the target of a military raid in February, during which he detonated a bomb to avoid being captured by American forces, killing himself and several others, including women and children.

The raid came just days after Isis staged its biggest attack in Syria for years, attempting a large-scale prison break in a bid to free thousands of its supporters.

The terror group has since announced a new leader, known as Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, about whom little is known. He is said to have long been a senior Isis figure, who was chosen by his predecessor while he was still alive.

In the latest message, Al-Muhajir called for more attacks to be carried out in Europe. “The opportunity is ripe for you,” he told his followers.

While Isis fighters have emerged from remote hiding places to carry out guerilla-style attacks on security forces and civilians in Iraq and Syria, experts believe it is no longer capable of organising sophisticated attacks in the West, and instead must rely on “lone wolf” tactics.

Olivier Guitta, managing director of GlobalStrat, an international security and geopolitical risk consultancy, said Isis had not pulled off any large-scale attacks in Europe for years and that its last attacks were merely inspired by the group, rather than organised and actively facilitated by it.

Such attacks include the stabbing of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess last October. Ali Harbi Ali was sentenced to a whole-life imprisonment last week for his murder after a trial that outlined how he had been indoctrinated by Isis propaganda.

 “Isis [believes it] needs to carry out attacks in Europe and in the US in order to regain credibility and put itself back in the news,’’ Guitta said. “The question is whether Isis has the logistical capacity to carry out a spectacular attack in Europe like in 2015 in Paris or 2016 in Brussels.’’

Aron Lund, a researcher at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, said the latest threat from Isis sounded like “the ravings of a leadership that doesn’t have much contact with its European adherents”.

Experts believe that the group is now banking on exploiting ongoing tensions from the Israeli-Palestine conflict in order to garner support.

In the latest clashes over venerated religious sites in Jerusalem, more than 150 Palestinians, as well as three Israeli policemen, were injured at the Al Aqsa compound on Friday at dawn.

The hostilities came just three weeks after terror attacks launched by Isis-inspired Israeli Arabs.

Lund said it was not clear how much direct involvement the Isis leadership had in organising the attacks but added that Israel remained an symbolic target for the group. They were “likely looking at this instrumentally in of raising morale in the ranks and rebuilding its tattered image in hardline Islamist circles more broadly”.