A new propaganda video, claiming to be from Islamic State, outlines a “global coalition” of nations that the terrorist group considers to be its enemies. Portugal is among them.
The video – provenance of which has not been confirmed – displays the flags of 60 nations, calling them a coalition of devils, and threatening “no respite” in the fight that the American voiceover claims to be for “the truth”.
Portuguese press is alluding to the clip today, saying it appears to feature Portuguese/French jihadi fighter Mickael dos Santos.
But more to the point, Correio da Manhã claims this is “the first time Portugal has been directly highlighted as a target for Islamic terror”.
Portugal’s collaboration with Inherent Resolve – the US-led initiative set up to counter ISIL and involving a combined joint task force – involves only 33 soldiers, adds CM, who are currently training Iraqis on how to combat terrorist fighters “on the ground”.
But CM has simplifed the ‘new threat’, as it has actually been mooted countless times over the years by extremists who vow to ‘reclaim al-Andalus’ – their name for the Iberian Peninsula conquered by Arabs in the 700s.
Only last summer, a book by BBC journalist Andrew Hosken revealed a chilling map claiming that it showed Islamic State plans to take over Portugal, Spain, Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, parts of the Middle East and North Africa and the Indian subcontinent by 2020.
Hosken said he doubted IS would succeed, but then “no one believed IS would be able to construct its caliphate to the extent that it already has”.
Today’s news comes as the body of Précilia Correia, one of the Portuguese victims of the Paris terror attacks, was finally laid to rest in a white coffin, plastered in written dedications from friends and relatives.
The service went ahead in the ornate cemetery of Prazeres, Lisbon – a place the 35-year-old had apparently always said she wanted to be buried.
