ISIS sets up English-speaking battalion to plan and carry out terror attacks in countries which use that language
- ISIS has formed a new fighting unit with orders to attack Western targets
- The 'Anwar al-Awlaki Battalion' is composed of English-speaking fighters
- It is named after American-born cleric killed by a drone strike in 2011
- News of the battalion's creation comes from informants based in Raqqa
Islamic State has formed a new fighting battalion composed entirely of English-speaking militants with orders to carry out attacks in the West.
The 'Anwar al-Awlaki Battalion' has been created to focus solely on carrying out attacks abroad and is working to export its fighters after they've attended training camps, it has been claimed.
Anti-ISIS group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said its informants in the organisation's self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa notified it of the development.
The new ISIS battalion is composed entirely of English-speaking recruits and has been given orders to carry out attacks in the West
According to one of the informants, a foreigner fighter proclaimed: 'Finally, the orders have been issued to implement an armed operation within my country.
He added: 'I am now ready to return to my town and carry out operations, now I am able to Jihad in Europe.'
The new battalion was said to have been formed to make good on ISIS' threats to carry its jihad to Europe after a U.S.-led alliance began its bombing campaign in September.
Its name is a reference to Anwar al-Awlaki, the American cleric who was killed in Yemen in a 2011 CIA drone strike who remains hugely popular with the militants.
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently is a small activist collective which secretly documents the shocking violence and oppression ISIS has brought to their home city.
Using a network of informers kept anonymous to protect their safety, it leaks details of the ISIS occupation to the world.
The Home Office says over 550 individuals of interest to the security services have travelled to the region from the UK since the start of the conflict. It is estimated around half of these have returned.
The unit was said to have been formed after a U.S.-led alliance initiated its bombing campaign last year. Pictured is smoke rising from the Syrian town of Kobani
An explosion rocks Kobani during a reported suicide bombing in October last year. The city was the scene of weeks of fierce battles between ISIS extremists and Kurdish militants
It comes just a day after Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned Britain was at 'very significant risk' from extremists inspired by ISIS.
Speaking ahead of a counter-terror summit in London yesterday, he warned against complacency in the fight to 'disrupt these plots before they come to the stage of an attack'.
David Cameron also met Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Downing Street, where he vowed the UK would do 'everything we can' to stop the flow of foreign fighters who were travelling to join ISIS and cause 'mayhem'.
He said: 'The threat from extremist terror you face in Iraq is also a threat we face here in the United Kingdom ... We will do everything we can to help stop foreign fighters coming to your country and creating the mayhem we see today.'
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