As World Marks Easter, ISIS Urges Global Attacks on Christians, Jews

As the Christian world celebrates Easter, the Islamic State (ISIS) is calling upon Muslims to attack Christians and Jews globally during the closing weeks of Ramadan, specifically targeting Western and democratic nations, including America, Israel, and European states, as part of its ongoing jihad campaign. 

The terrorist group ISIS is urging Muslims worldwide to mark “the holy month of Ramadan” by “target[ing] Christians and Jewish people, especially in the US, Europe, and Israel,” as reported Friday by the British daily the Mirror. 

The directive was issued via Telegram by Islamic State spokesperson Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari, who also praised the recent deadly attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall music venue that saw at least 143 people killed by terrorists from ISIS-K (the Afghanistan affiliate of ISIS) who fired on some of the estimated 6,000 attendees of a rock concert. 

Following the attack, the Islamic State faction circulated a selfie taken by the gunmen, lauding the “bloody attack” against a “large crowd of Christians.”

Urging the group’s supporters to attack “crusaders” everywhere, the terror group’s spokesman told them, “We ask God that you make it to Palestine so you could fight the Jews face to face in an endless religious war.”

Al-Ansari’s address from Thursday commemorated the tenth anniversary of ISIS’s caliphate declaration, criticized Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda for deviating from their original path, commended the worldwide spread of the Islamic State, and warned that American troops stationed in Iraq will “lead to more attacks” from the terror organization.

Furthermore, he called for increased attacks by ISIS members in Mozambique and the Philippines.

Al-Ansari, according to the Mirror report, highlighted both monotheism and Jihad as key goals and insisted the group’s conflict with Jews is unending, describing it as a continuous “religious, ideological war,” while listing strategies for major violence.

Earlier this month, an allegedly ISIS-tied Egyptian man was arrested by French officers of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) in France in connection to a suspected terrorist plot against the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. 

The disclosure comes as French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced last week that the terror threat system had been raised to its highest level. It had previously been raised to its highest level in October after a teacher was stabbed to death by a Chechnyan migrant amid calls from the Palestinian terror group Hamas for a global “day of jihad” in the wake of the October 7 terror attacks on Israel.

On Friday, French broadcaster BFMTV reported that Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had ordered local officials to deploy police officers to protect Catholic and Protestant churches over Easter weekend, given that Christian places of worship serve as a likely target for Muslim terrorists.

Last week, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned that ISIS-K would love to commit a terror attack in the United States like the one in Moscow.

Last month, a Minnesota man was charged with aiding ISIS, including undergoing training and urging attacks against the United States, according to recently unsealed court documents.

In 2017, ISIS claimed responsibility for bombings at Coptic churches in Egypt during Palm Sunday, killing dozens and wounding over 100.

The attack took place only four months after ISIS’s terror bombing of the St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Cairo, which left 29 dead.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is marking its fifth Easter since the harrowing 2019 jihadist suicide bombings that deliberately targeted crowded churches and popular hotel brunch spots, killing 275 people and injuring dozens of others. 

The country’s leaders are still addressing the trauma left by the Islamic State-claimed attack on Sri Lanka’s sizable Christian community, promising heightened security this week including body checks on attendees at some of the country’s largest Easter Sunday Masses.

In its 2023 “Persecutors of the World” report, International Christian Concern (ICC) listed Nigeria as the most dangerous place in the world to be Christian, noting that Nigerian Christians face violent persecution from the Muslim Fulani in the Middle Belt and from the ISIS-aligned terrorists of Boko Haram in the north.