Police have swooped to thwart a terror group plotting attacks on footballers including Jude Bellingham and his Real Madrid teammates, Spanish media has claimed. I’Iam Foundation – an Islamic State splinter cell – was also planning at attack at the Olympic Games in Paris, according to El Confidencial newspaper.
A joint operation involving Interpol, the FBI, and the Spanish Civil Guard Information Service dismantled the organisation last week.
Under the slogan “Score the last goal!”, the Islamist extremists urged attacks at games at Euro 2024 in Germany, proposing three venues: Berlin, Munich and Dortmund.
Bellingham scored the only goal in England’s opening fixture in Gelsenkirchen last night, while the remaining group games are in Frankfurt and Cologne respectively.
However, should England progress further in the tournament, they would almost certainly have to play at one of the three stadia named as targets at some stage.
The cell had urged its followers to attack the bus of the Real Madrid players and their fans. Bellingham won the Champions League with the Spanish giants last season.
One poster, who shared a picture of a hooded man opening fire with a rifle, the target set on the Real Madrid bus, commented: “Brother. Wait in a place near the players’ arrival point. Aim at them along with their supporters.”
The attack, planned on Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, was thwarted and nine people, including residents from Girona, Cadiz, and Almeria, were arrested.
The Islamic State has also called for attacks at the Olympic, with one poster sharing an image of the Eiffel Tower to which a drone is headed.
It claims the “Lone Wolf Olympics with the will of Allah” were beginning.
Police have also deactivated channels spreading the propaganda, in addition to seizing self-training guides to enable followers to train themselves and generate ‘lone wolves” – terrorists who carry out individual attacks with hardly any support from ISIS, or Daesh.