ISIS ‘evolving into a new beast’ to strike the West as fanatics build Africa Caliphate, warns Brit who fought fanatics
ISIS is “evolving into a new beast” in order to strike the West, a Brit who fought the terrorist group has warned.
Macer Gifford chucked in his job as a currency trader in the City in 2015 and went to Syria to fight the Islamist extremists alongside Kurdish forces.
He warned that despite the collapse of the Caliphate and the loss of almost all its territory ISIS still posed “as much of a threat today” as they went about recruiting fighters.
His chilling warning comes as fanatics attempt to build a new Caliphate in Africa.
Gifford told : “I certainly think ISIS will evolve.
“All terrorist groups are quite adaptable, you have seen it happen over the last 10/20 years how Al-Qaeda has operated and how ISIS operates as well.
“I think ISIS want to prove to the world that they will endure, that they are still a threat to the West and still a force to be reckoned with."
The group has been gathering momentum across the world as splinter which swear allegiance to ISIS attempt to gain a foothold in a number of locations, including India, Congo and Mozambique.
I think ISIS want to prove to the world that they will endure, that they are still a threat to the West and still a force to be reckoned with
Macer Gifford
Despite the group’s defeat and severely depleted arms and fighters, Gifford said it will still continue to “try and hit anywhere” and at “any target”.
He joked: “If Boris Johnson stubs his toes, the Islamic State will be the first people to claim it was them that did it."
Gifford, who served three tours of Syria, said the group’s determination to continue will pose a considerable threat around the world as it continues to recruit fighters for its campaign of terror.
He said: “The fact is that ISIS are being as aggressive as possible to make sure that their terror lives on and spreads."
STILL POSE 'A THREAT'
Gifford added the group “are as much of a threat today as they were before”.
With the group no longer battling to hold onto territory in Syria and Iraq, Gifford said this now made them a dangerous threat which will trouble the West.
He thought that because the Islamists “have almost been freed of that battle” this allowed them to evolve and become more like Al-Qaeda and harder to “pin down”.
Gifford joined the forces fighting ISIS at the age of 27 and fought with the MFS (Syriac Military Council) in Raqqa, Syria.
He then served three years in the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) before coming home to Britain.
ON THE MARCH IN AFRICA
The chilling warning comes after the United Nations warned that ISIS is on the march in Africa as is seeks to build a caliphate in the continent.
The Taliban are also currently surging through Afghanistan in the wake of the withdrawal by US troops.
A report to the UN Security Council is warning that both ISIS and al-Qaeda are growing in strength.
“This is especially true in parts of West and East Africa, where affiliates of both groups can boast gains in supporters and territory under threat, as well as growing capabilities in fundraising and weapons, for example, in the use of drones,” said the report.
In April, dozens of innocent people, including foreign oil workers, were ruthlessly killed when ISIS terrorists went on the rampage in the key industrial town of Palma, in Mozambique.
The UN says that in the country "the absence of significant counter-terrorist measures" have transformed the ISIS affiliate in central Africa into a "major threat."
Africa is now “the region most affected by terrorism” and has the “largest numbers of casualties”.
The terror network already has branches operating in Tunisia and Libya and across the Sahel region including Mali and Chad.
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