Cameron: 'ISIL-Inspired Terrorist Acts' Already Occurred in Europe

Cameron: 'ISIL-Inspired Terrorist Acts' Already Occurred in Europe

British Prime Minister David Cameron reported that “the first ISIL-inspired terrorist acts on the continent of Europe have already taken place,” and declared the group “a greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before” in a statement on Friday. 

“What we’re facing in Iraq now, with ISIL, is a greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before … With ISIL, we are facing a terrorist organization, not being hosted in a country, but actually seeking to establish, and then violently expand, its own terrorist state” he said about the threat ISIL poses.

Cameron added that the murder of James Foley “was clear evidence, not that any more was needed, that this is not some foreign conflict thousands of miles from home that we can hope to ignore. The ambition to create an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and Syria is a threat to our own security here in the UK,” adding that “at least 500 people have traveled from Britain to fight in Syria and potentially Iraq.” 

Cameron rebutted assertions that Western foreign policy created ISIS, arguing, “The root cause of this threat to our security is quite clear. It is a poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism that is condemned by all faiths and faith leaders.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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