- Francisco Martinez said Spain is taking threats made online seriously
- Claimed ISIS supporters have been discussing using Ebola in attacks
- Militants also said to be plotting to use other deadly toxins and viruses
- ISIS spokesman has also used the internet to encourage would-be jihadis
- Suggested supporters carry out lone wolf attacks using poisoned needles
ISIS is urging supporters in the West to kill civilians by any means possible – including using Ebola as a chemical weapon and stabbing people with poisoned needles, a senior Spanish politician claims.
Francisco Martinez, Spain’s state secretary for security, said he is taking the threats seriously after uncovering conversations in which jihadis discuss carrying out so-called ‘lone wolf’ attacks.
Speaking before lawmakers in parliament yesterday, Mr Martinez said would-be militants are using chat rooms to explore the best ways to carry out terror attacks, adding that the conversations prove ISIS considers the internet to be ‘an extension of the battlefield’.
Mr Martinez, the second in command in Spain’s interior ministry, said investigators had identified ‘many examples’ of threats to use Ebola as a chemical weapon.
He pointed out three specific cases in which aspiring jihadis ‘linked to ISIS’ had used internet chat rooms to seriously discuss the viability of harnessing the deadly virus and other toxins as part of a new terrorism offensive, according to Spain’s RTVE media company.
One conversation, identified as having taken place between ISIS sympathisers in mid-September, referred to ‘the use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States,’ he claimed.
Another conversation reportedly saw militants working out how best to employ ‘deadly chemical products’ they had stolen from laboratories.
Threat: Members of a medical team carry the body of an Ebola victim in Sierra Leone. Would-be terrorists are now using the internet to discuss how to harness the virus for use in terrorist attacks, it has been claimed
Mr Martinez went on to say that a spokesman for the terror group had also taken to the internet to urge supporters to kill Westerners by any means possible – adding that he had suggested ‘poisonous injections’ as a possible method.
Islamic State militants view the internet as ‘an extension of the battlefield’, according to Mr Martinez.
He said the terror group has identified six benefits to having a strong online presence: ‘Threatening enemies through propaganda, preparing operations, exchanging information, ideological training, recruiting new members and acquiring finance’.
Earlier this month, Jeh Johnson – US Homeland Security Secretary- dismissed suggestions ISIS could be planning to use the Ebola virus to attack the United States.
‘We’ve seen no specific credible intelligence that [Isis] is attempting to use any sort of disease or virus to attack our homeland,’ he said in a speech to the Association of the United States Army.
HARROWING VIDEO SHOWS SCENE OF BLOODY DEVASTATION AFTER SYRIAN ARMY DROPS ‘BARREL BOMBS’ ON REFUGEE CAMP, KILLING UP TO 75
A harrowing video has emerged showing the charred and dismembered bodies of up to 75 people killed when a Syrian regime helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a refugee camp yesterday.
The graphic footage – filmed at a displaced persons camp in the northern province of Idlib – shows the bloodied corpses of women and children, while passers-by scramble to save the wounded.
‘It’s a massacre of refugees,’ a voice off camera can be heard saying, while tents that act as makeshift homes burn all around him and dazed children wander the camp looking for relatives.
Barrel bombs, which are banned by international law, are crudely made containers filled with nails, metal shrapnel and explosive material that are dropped from low altitude.
The video begins with the cameraman racing up to the bombed camp on a motorcycle and finding a scene of total devastation.
‘Let the whole world see this, they are displaced people. Look at them, they are civilians, displaced civilians. They fled the bombardment,’ he said.
The man runs into the camp and screams at others to pick up the bodies, trying to convince them that the people on the ground with limbs missing might still survive if taken to hospital.
‘This one’s good! This one’s good!’ he shouts, telling two men to carry a limp body with one leg hanging from strips of flesh to a nearby pickup truck.
‘Pick him up from the stomach not the leg,’ he screams.
Harrowing: ‘It’s a massacre of refugees,’ a voice off camera can be heard saying, while tents that act as makeshift homes burn all around him and dazed children wander the camp looking for relatives
A man in another video of the Abedin camp, which houses people who had escaped fighting in neighbouring Hama province, said as many as 75 people had died.
Syrian state media did not mention the bombing. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the civil war, said it heard reports that 10 civilians had been killed.
Details of the attack could not be independently confirmed.
Human rights groups say the Assad regime has previously dropped barrel bombs on densely populated neighbourhoods.
These acts are in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution banning their use.
