International Shia News Agency

CNN.com/ NYPD, other law enforcement on alert after ISIS threat resurfaces

SHAFAQNA (International Shia News Association)- The New York City Police Department and other law enforcement personnel responded to a threat from ISIS after someone re-released a September 2014 message that tells followers to “rise up and kill intelligence officers, police officers, soldiers, and civilians.”

The threat named the United States, France, Australia and Canada as targets.

In an internal memo, NYPD employees were told to “remain alert and consider tactics at all times while on patrol,” especially in light of the attacks in France last week.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a similar bulletin to law enforcement across the country. That bulletin and the NYPD memo make it clear that this new message is consistent with previous threats that ISIS and others, including al Qaeda, have issued.

John Miller, the NYPD deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, tempered fears of a threat to officials in New York City.

“I don’t think that we are under any more threat … or any less threat than we were the day before,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Miller said the department is on a “heightened security posture on a normal day compared to almost any other police department.”

More than 1,000 police officers and civilian analysts are assigned to a counterterrorism mission every day, and officers have studied the recent attacks in France, he said.

France was hit with three days of terror after three suspects killed 17 civilians in multiple attacks last week.

Why is ISIS so successful at luring Westerners?

On Sunday, an update to an old ISIS video was released by an unidentified person or organization, adding scenes from the France terror attack. The video was not issued by ISIS, and the warnings in the video are taken from an earlier video released on September 14.

“They are hoping that the attacks in Paris by a group which included a self-professed ISIS follower will inspire other attacks in the West,” CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said.

Miller did say, however, that the video re-release shows that ISIS is “using the momentum from the Paris attacks in part of their messaging strategy to see: ‘Who can we get to follow this?’ “

ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al Adnani’s “fatwa calling for lone-wolf attacks back in September was a game changer,” Cruickshank said. “Since then, we’ve seen ISIS-inspired attacks in all the Western countries he specifically mentioned: Canada, the United States, Australia and France. In October we also saw United Kingdom police break up a plot to target soldiers and police by extremists who British authorities say were deeply influenced by Adnani’s fatwa,” Cruickshank added.

The spree began in Paris on Wednesday at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine, after two brothers stormed the building, killing 12 people and later escaping.

Early Thursday, a female police officer was killed after a man dressed in all black and wearing bulletproof vests shot her in a Paris suburb.

Two hostage situations unfolded Friday between law enforcement and the two sets of suspects. The first scene ended with the two brothers suspected of the magazine murders killed by security forces, said Bernard Corneille, the mayor of Othis, France.

At the same time, authorities moved into a kosher store where hostages were being held by the alleged cop killer. While 15 hostages escaped, four were killed, as was the suspect.

en.shafaqna.com

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