IS plotting terror attacks on Jewish community in UK, warns Rudd
BRITAIN’S Jewish community is on heightened alert after the Home Secretary issued a chilling warning of a ‘significant’ jihadi threat to their safety.
Amber Rudd said Islamic State, also known as Daesh, had identified Jews as a ‘legitimate and desirable target’.
And she also voiced concerns about a rise in anti-Semitic ‘hate crime’ incidents in this country.
Miss Rudd’s grim assessment came as a Daily Mail investigation revealed that Islamic State is actively plotting terror attacks on high-profile targets in the UK including Jewish schools and institutions, Parliament, and football stadiums.
The terror group is using an encrypted mobile phone app known as Telegram, which was exposed by the Daily Mail two years ago, to recruit British jihadists to commit atrocities on a scale never seen before in Europe.
Two messages calling for the murder of Jews were posted on an Islamic State chat group on Telegram on Monday afternoon.
The purpose of the invitation-only channel appears to be to provide ideas and know-how for planning lone wolf attacks and assaults by small groups in the UK.
An undercover investigator working for the Mail infiltrated an IS chat group on Telegram last month.
On it, he found links to websites which included lists of hundreds of potential targets.
It also contained hundreds of downloadable military manuals and instructional videos to help plans become reality. Miss Rudd’s stark warning to British Jews came days after the new terror watchdog, Max Hill QC, said the country faces a level of threat not seen since the IRA bombings of the 1970s.
Addressing Jewish community leaders in central London on Wednesday night, she said: ‘The most significant threat to the UK and our interests comes from Daesh.
‘There have been terrorist attacks on our doorstep, in France, Germany and Belgium and attacks on British people overseas.
‘We’ve seen terrorists target Jews specifically in recent years including in Paris, Brussels, Toulouse and Copenhagen.
‘Just last month a 16-year-old girl was charged with terrorism offences in Denmark after she was caught planning to
‘Legitimate and desirable target’
blow up a Jewish school. And Daesh literature continues to identify the Jewish community as a “desirable and legitimate target”.’
Miss Rudd highlighted the evacuation of the Jewish Museum in north London this week following a bomb threat.
She was speaking at the annual fundraising dinner for the Community Security Trust – a Jewish charity that works alongside the police to protect the community.
Miss Rudd said the Government would continue to provide funding for the security trust to help protect synagogues and Jewish schools and colleges. She announced a further £13.4million for the coming year.
She said more needed to be done to tackle hate crime and anti-Semitism. According to CST statistics, there was a 36 per cent rise in the number of antiSemitic hate crime incidents last year when 1,309 were recorded, she added.