An Islamic State-linked graphic is circulating on social media, calling on Jihadists in major European cities to drive into large crowds, as if to emulate the recent actions of an Afghan asylum seeker in Germany. The campaign asks:
What are you waiting for? The streets are full of targets. Run them over!!
It comes from the unofficial IS associate outfit ‘Al Saif Media,’ and calls in particular for high-impact attacks in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna, Brussels, Antwerp, and Salzburg. europeanconservative.com’s rundown on recent terror attacks in these and other areas across the continent can be found here.
A spokesman for Antwerp police said that a high police presence was particularly required in areas with Jewish populations, as the conflict in the Middle East continues to reverberate across Europe. They added that “we are monitoring the situation and are able to act quickly if necessary.”
Belgium’s Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis also told the Gazet van Antwerpen newspaper that the Jihadist advertising campaign was “certainly not something we take lightly.” It currently designates the country’s ‘general threat level’ as “serious”—the third in a four-level scale.
Sweden Democrats MEP Charlie Weimers, who is working to get the issue of mass migration-related crime on the agenda in the European Parliament, said it is now “time to wake up.”
Croatian politician Stephen Bartulica added that the call for increased terror again proved U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s claim Europe has an “enemy within,” identifying this as “radicalisation and extremism spread without response.” Officials, he said,
persecute people more for ‘hate speech’ than bullies. How many more warnings will we ignore before we protect the citizens of Europe?
In Britain, predictably, the Labour government is focussing on peripheral issues rather than the causes of terror by clamping down on the online sale to under-18s of knives, already available to all with access to a kitchen. By the same logic, it should also be limiting car sales, or at least making bonnets smoother.
Also in the UK, a counter-extremism analyst this week claimed that “I think you have more extremists in the UK than you have in the Middle East,” and warned that increased sectarian voting—which was on display at the last general election—could see Britain become a “global powerbase” for radicals.
