ISIS To Attack US Churches? Telegram Posts Urge Supporters To Carry Out Attacks During Holiday Season, Report Says

The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, published a list of U.S. churches and called on its supporters to target them during the holiday season, according to a report Thursday in Vocativ. This comes as European authorities have launched a manhunt for a Tunisian man who is suspected of driving a truck into a Christmas market Monday in Berlin killing 12 people — an attack claimed by ISIS.

The list of the churches across all the American states was published on ISIS channels on the Telegram messaging app by a user named “Abu Marya al-Iraqi,” according to the Vocativ report. ISIS reaches out to its supporters through Telegram, where the group also provides instructions on making and igniting explosives.

The Telegram post was in Arabic and called on “for bloody celebrations in the Christian New Year,” along with plans to use the militant group’s network of lone-wolf attackers to “turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie,” Vocativ reported.

Another post reportedly instigated ISIS supporters to attack churches, popular hotels, crowded coffee shops, streets, markets and public places, and published a list of addresses for these places in the U.S., Canada, France and the Netherlands.

The SITE Intelligence Group has also cited similar ISIS posts lately. American authorities have stepped up security across the country during the holiday season on the heels of the Berlin attack.

Security officials in New York and Chicago said police presence has been beefed up for holiday events even though they did not get intelligence on such attacks. In Boston, police force has been deployed and barriers were put around the Boston Holiday Market.

Following the truck attack in Berlin, ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency called the suspect — identified as Anis Amri — a “soldier of the Islamic State.” A Europe-wide manhunt is underway for Amri, who German authorities warned could be “violent and armed.”