London: Islamic State (IS) terror group is plotting deadly attacks across Europe along the lines of the one carried out on a concert hall in Paris in which 130 people were killed four years ago, a leading British newspaper has reported.
The November 2015 Paris incidents were a series of coordinated terror attacks in the France capital and the city’s northern suburb of Saint-Denis. In the attacks, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France stadium during a football match, followed by several mass shootings and a suicide bombing at restaurants.
Documents seen by ‘The Sunday Times’ here reveal detailed plans of terrorist attacks in Europe and the Middle East, funded and controlled by IS who are ‘actively planning’ to recreate the Paris-style attack of November 2015.
“The operations in Europe are only a fraction of the plans outlined in the documents, which were found on a hard drive dropped by members of an IS cell in a firefight near the militants’ final stronghold in Syria earlier this year,” the report noted.
The documents provide details of how, even with its so-called caliphate destroyed in Syria, the IS terror group continues to run sophisticated international networks, move fighters over borders, fund operations and plan bank robberies, vehicle rammings, assassinations and computer hacking.
In a letter signed by six IS leaders and addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – the group’s ‘caliph’ – and his deputy, the authors break down IS strategy abroad into two parts: operations and borders.
Operations abroad, they write, will be directed by an IS member called Abu Khabab al-Muhajir. The report states he controls three cells: one in Russia and two in Germany. Another group will be based in north-eastern Syria under separate command. The first aim of the cells would be to steal money to fund the caliphate.
“Killing infidel venture capitalists, hacking banks through bank accounts, bank robberies or robberies of places that are pre-studied,” the letter said, adding that “after any operation of this kind, we will send the money as we procure it.” The letter states the cells will also commit attacks including vehicle-ramming operations. Most importantly they will plan ‘special operations’ with a ‘determined goal and outcome that are picked carefully’.