Islamic State 'is plotting Christmas terror attacks in UK and Europe' for publication of Prophet Mohammed cartoons in France, ex-MI6 spy warns as Macron announces plans to close 80 'extremist' mosques
- Islamic State is plotting Christmas terror attacks across Europe, ex-MI6 spy says
- Aimen Dean said plots were being hatched by Isis cells in Syria and Libya
- Ex-bombmaker said extremists are seeking revenge for Mohammed cartoons
The so-called Islamic State is plotting Christmas terror attacks in Britain and European countries in revenge for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in France, a former MI6 spy has warned.
Aimen Dean, who spent eight years spying on al-Qaeda before his cover was blown by a US intelligence leak, claimed plots were being hatched in jihadi-held areas of northern Syria and Libya to terrorise Europeans this winter.
He told a security conference in London that Abu Omar al-Shishani, an Isis commander who is thought to have survived a US strike in 2016, is planning to send extremists to the West via Turkey and across the Mediterranean from North Africa.
They will then carry out a series of terror atrocities in Britain, France and Germany as their governments lift coronavirus restrictions ahead of Christmas, Dean said.
Home Secretary Priti Patel moved Britain to its second-highest terror threat level of 'severe' after a series of horrifying attacks in France and Austria, where an Isis sympathiser killed four people during a gun rampage in Vienna.
In France, schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in October for showing a classroom Mohammed cartoons in a lesson on free speech. Three Christians were killed in a mass stabbing by a Tunisian migrant in Nice just two weeks later.
The French government vowed to clamp down on religious extremism by closing nearly 80 mosques accused of 'separatism' and expelling 66 undocumented migrants suspected of radicalisation from the country.
Dean told the International Security Week conference: 'The worry is that, according to people who know him, [Shishani] is planning to avenge the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in places like Germany, UK, France and all around Christmas time.
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