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ISIS has called for attacks on Christians around the world in the wake of Koran book-burning stunts in Sweden.
The terrorist organisation’s media elements launched an incitement campaign calling terrorist attacks against Christians, according to a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center on February 6.
As part of the campaign, which is intended to encourage ISIS operatives to carry out attacks, videos and posts calling on the operatives to carry out attacks around the world, especially in Europe, were distributed on social media.
An ISIS-affiliated Telegram channel published posts calling for attacks against Christians around the world, saying that Muslims should see the burning of the Koran as an insult to the religion and they were encouraged to ‘shed the blood of the perpetrator’.
It was emphasized that all Muslims must protect their religion if they want to go to heaven and that they should act according to the ‘measure for measure’ principle.
The announcement of the campaign against Christians comes after the burning of a Koran in Sweden by Rasmus Paludan (pictured), a Danish-Swedish politician and leader of the far-right party, as part of a protest in the capital Stockholm against Turkey and Islam on January 21
The announcement of the campaign against Christians comes after the burning of a Koran in Sweden by Rasmus Paludan, a Danish-Swedish politician and leader of the far-right party, as part of a protest in the capital Stockholm against Turkey and Islam on January 21.
Paludan burned the Islamic holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy, stoking the anger of Turkey which then said it would not support the Scandinavian country’s bid for NATO membership.
Protests have been held since then in a number of Muslim countries, and only three days after on January 24, crowds of Afghan men condemned the incident in Khost, a city bordering Pakistan.
In a statement the day after the book burning, on January 22, Afghanistan’s foreign ministry called for the Swedish government ‘to punish the perpetrator’ and to stop ‘such vile and provocative anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim acts’.
According to one of the posts in light of ISIS’s media campaign, the killing of over 20 Christian citizens in a pub in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on January 23.
Additionally, several attacks in which Mozambican army soldiers were killed recently were apparently also reprisals for the burning of the Koran in Sweden, as ‘Christians everywhere are considered Paludan’s brothers’.
On February 1 the ISIS-affiliated Mathani Foundation published a video entitled ‘Kill them wherever you meet them,’ calling for carrying out terrorist attacks in Western countries.
According to the video, which includes clips documenting the incident of burning the Koran, Paludan harmed all Muslims but received protection from the Swedish authorities, who provided him with security.
Palestinian teachers and schoolgirls burning a Sweden flag during a protest against the burning of the Koran by Danish-Swedish politician Paludan in Gaza City
Later in the video, an ISIS operative appears who speaks fluent English, who is apparently in Syria, calls to harm the ‘infidels’ in any possible way.
He listed work tools and trucks as weapons and any other tool in the hands of the would-be attackers: ‘Kill them wherever you meet them. If you are a tradesman, use a nail gun to nail the heads and crucify them on woodwork.
‘If you are a truck driver, run over them until their streets are washed with their filthy blood or pour oil on their houses, while they are sleeping, and set them on fire, so that the message [not to harm Muslims and Islam] will be burned into their heads.’
Later in the video, an old recording is played in the voice of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the organization’s spokesman in 2014-2016, who focused his propaganda on calling on Muslims in the West to kill ‘infidels’ in their countries.
In the recording, Al-Adnani says that all ‘infidels’ are fair game and that they should be attacked without distinction between civilians and security personnel.
The video also includes video clips documenting terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS operatives or inspired by it on European soil.