Islamic State terrorist (file)
Islamic State terrorist (file)Reuters

A group of Danish Muslim extremists sympathetic to the "Islamic State" terrorist group (IS) planned to murder an entire family and film it as a "warning" to Western states intervening against IS in Iraq and Syria.

According to Norway's NRK TV channel the group of Islamists intended to break into a random home, slit the throats of all the residents and post the footage online.

The horrific plot is reminiscent of a similar one recently foiled in Australia, where a group of pro-IS Islamist terrorists planned to kidnap and behead a random member of the public and distribute footage of the gruesome killing in "revenge" for anti-IS airstrikes. The jihadis reportedly planned to wrap their victim in the Islamic State flag before murdering him.

Norwegian officials have declined to comment on the terror plot in their country, but it comes after a major terror alert in July which forced mass searches at border crossings and the closure of Olso's main synagogue as a security precaution.

A Norwegian terror expert confirmed to the Norwegian-language fyens.dk site that "multiple sources" had confirmed the existence of such a plot.

Alarmingly, not long ago another Norwegian newspaper, Verdens Gang, claimed security services were on the alert for a group of IS terrorists on their way to the country to carry out an attack against Norwegian civilians involving knives. Four suspected terrorists reportedly landed in Athens, Greece, on their way to carry out the attack, but their current whereabouts are unknown according to the paper.

Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces continue airstrikes against IS positions in both Iraq and Syria - as well as against Al Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front.

The anti-IS operation expanded from Western airstrikes aimed at halting the jihadi advance in Iraq, with the aid of Kurdish Peshmerga and pro-Iraqi government forces, to airstrikes against IS strongholds in Syria, including its de-fact capital Raqqa. 

Those latter strikes have notably been carried out with the aid of Sunni Muslim Arab states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan. Qatar has also reportedly provided aerial support. As noted above, the raids in Syria also targeted the Nusra Front - which though opposed to IS is suspected of harboring veteran Al Qaeda terrorists as they plot to carry out attacks against the US.

Last night airstrikes were also carried out against IS positions close to the embattled Kurdish town of Kobane, along the Syria-Turkey border. Kurdish YPJ fighters have been battling Islamist terrorists in the region since the start of the Syrian civil war, but recent weeks have seen IS forces - flush with US-made weapons seized from Iraqi forces and emboldened by its lightening advances in recent months  - advance to within 9 miles of the town, committing atrocities against local communities along the way.