ISIS vowed that the Manchester attack is a harbinger of what’s to come as Islamic State territory falls in Iraq and Syria and the terror group continues to “shift its focus towards carrying out attacks on Crusader soil.”
The terror group didn’t publish any new attack tactic tips in today’s new issue of their Rumiyah magazine, but teased to a special forthcoming publication about how their followers should observe the last 10 days of Ramadan, which ends the evening of June 24.
“Just one week before the blessed month of Ramadan, the world’s attention was focused on the British city of Manchester. A soldier of the Khilafah had carried out a Just Terror operation, striking Manchester Arena at the conclusion of a concert by an American singer,” said the foreword of the magazine, which was distributed in several languages online; “Just Terror” is the ISIS name for lone jihadist operations.
“The explosion rocked the city and filled its residents with terror as many of them scrambled to try to contact their loved ones and ensure that they were safe. Then, the casualty figures started emerging: More than 20 had been killed and dozens more had been wounded. The total would later climb to nearly 100 dead and wounded,” the article continued. “In the wake of the bombing, the panic-ridden friends and relatives took to social media to enlist the help of strangers in the search for their loved ones, local pubs began offering free booze to emergency personnel in need of clearing their minds of the traumatic scenes they had witnessed, British ‘Muslims’ came out and offered their token denunciations out of fear of retaliation, massive numbers of police and military personnel were deployed on the streets, the UK threat level was raised to ‘Critical,’ politicians brought their campaigning for the upcoming general elections to a halt, the distraught and ‘broken’ American singer placed her European tour on hold and went home, and the Chelsea FC football team cancelled their victory parade in London.”
“The enemies of Islam did their best to put on a brave and defiant face, but their efforts were a complete failure. They were clearly suffering.”
ISIS asserted that the Manchester attack “seemed to confirm what so many analysts had been asserting for some time now: that with the loss of territory in Iraq and Sham, the Islamic State would shift its focus towards carrying out attacks on Crusader soil.”
“What many of these analysts failed to admit, however, is that losing territory was nothing new for the Islamic State. The loss of most of its territory in the wake of the Sahwah initiative in Iraq did not lead to its defeat,” stated the article. “Rather, it only led to the Islamic State regrouping, redoubling its efforts, rekindling the flames of war, recapturing every inch of territory it had lost, and expanding into Sham, Sinai, Khurasan, and multiple other regions around the world, regions where no one would have expected that the mujahidin would take control and establish the rule of Allah.”
The new magazine issue was released the day after the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Syrian Democratic Forces launched the “Great Battle” of Raqqa, plunging into the city to defeat ISIS in their caliphate capital.
In Iraq, ISIS forces have been flushed from east Mosul and are fighting to hold on to their remaining pockets of west Mosul, killing families trying to flee the fierce battles.
“The reality faced by the Crusaders today is that despite their claims that the Islamic State has been weakened, the mujahidin’s ousting of the Crusaders and their puppets and their attainment of consolidation in the land can come as quickly and unexpectedly in any region of the earth, just as they did previously in Mosul, and their strikes in the heart of the Crusaders’ strongholds in the West will continue to occur just as suddenly and unexpectedly as occurred in Manchester,” the ISIS magazine continued.
“For just as Allah expelled the disbelieving Crusaders at their first gathering and mobilization in Iraq, it is He who will expel them from the lands of the Muslims in the Philippines and cast terror into their hearts in their own strongholds in the West.” The magazine’s cover story is on ISIS growth in east Asia.
The weekend attack in London is included later in the magazine within a column of briefs on ISIS-claimed operations around the world, with the terrorists referred to by nom de guerres. “On the 8th of Ramadan, a unit of Islamic State soldiers, Abu Sadiq al-Britani, Abu Mujahid al-Britani, and Abu Yusuf al-Britani, carried out an operation striking two locations in London, the first being London Bridge where they ran over a number of Crusaders, and the second being a pub where they stabbed several others before attaining shahadah.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member