Islamic State had urged supporters to use Ramadan to launch ‘all-out war’ against the west

IT’S traditionally the holiest month of the Muslim calendar - but now Ramadan has become synonymous with random acts of violence and terror.

Counter-terrorism special forces assemble near the scene of the terrorist attack near London Bridge. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

WHILE no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks in London, the so-called Islamic State group had urged its supporters to use the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to launch an “all-out war’’ against the west.

The group made the call on the first day of the month of fasting and reflection, May 26, urging supporters to “double your efforts’’ and attack westerners “in their homes, their markets, their roads and their forums.’’

ATTACKERS: ‘This is for Allah’

POLICE WARNING: ‘Run to a place of safety’

People speak with police officers after the latest terror atrocity in London. Picture: Reuters/Hannah McKay

Islamic State used its propaganda magazine Rumiyah, and a statement on YouTube, to call on the “lions of war’’ to intensify their operations at home if they were not able to travel to Islamic State territory in Iraq or Syria.

And in an apparent reference to the murder of 22 people at Manchester Arena by British-born suicide bomber Salman Abedi four days earlier, which targeted little girls and young people, it told supporters: “Do not despise the work. Your targeting of the so-called innocents and civilians is beloved by us and the most effective, so go forth and may you get a great reward or martyrdom in Ramadan.”

On the first day of Ramadan, 29 Coptic Christians in Egypt were massacred when gunmen attacked their bus with machineguns, killing men, women and children as they travelled to a desert monastery to pray.

Governments across the west have been on red alert for the Ramadan period, which ends on June 24, fearing Islamic State supporters will heed the message and use it to attack their own countries.

Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Picture: AFP / myspace.com

Last year, the Ramadan period was a bloody and violent one, with 49 people killed at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando by US citizen Omar Mateen.

On June 28, three assailants attacked the international terminal at Turkey’s Ataturk airport in Istanbul, killing 45 people and injuring 230 more, as well as crippling the country’s tourist economy.

Islamists also targeted their home countries outside the west, with 292 people killed when a huge truck bomb was detonated in Baghdad on July 3.

In 2015, a gunman used the Ramadan period to murder tourists sunbaking on a beach at a resort in Sousse, in Tunisia, killing 38 people – 30 of them British.

Tourists look at flowers at the site of a shooting attack on the beach in front of the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Port el Kantaoui, on the outskirts of Sousse, June 2015. Picture: AFP/Kenzo Tribouillard

Harun Khan, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, hit out at yesterday’s attacks.

“Muslims everywhere are outraged and disgusted at these cowards who once again have destroyed the lives of our fellow Britons.”

“That this should happen in this month of Ramadan, when many Muslims were praying and fasting only goes to show that these people respect neither life nor faith.”

Originally published as Islamic State had urged supporters to use Ramadan to launch ‘all-out war’ against the west