ISIS mastermind sent 60 jihadis to attack London

The schemes were hatched in the run-up to the November 13 killings in Paris, where jihadis slaughtered 130 people in a series of bombings and shootings.

And the senior counter-terrorism source behind the revelations fears that most of the 60 fighters are still at large after the massacre and plotting more attacks.

The source, who spoke to CNN, said: ”The worry has been that if, say, 20 were involved in the Paris attacks, there might be 40 or so still out there.”

It comes as ISIS – also known as Daesh – issued a chilling warning that the West would soon find out how many fighters were hiding in its midst.

The warning was made in Sunday’s issue of the terror group’s French-speaking magazine and quoted similar concerns from intelligence chiefs.

"How many of our lions have entered (Europe). Ten? Fifty? One Hundred? With God's will you'll soon find out,” the magazine said.

The source said al-Adnani is in charge of planning international attacks for ISIS, commenting: "As far as we're concerned, he is top of our target list."

But they added that their understanding of the threat was based on fragmentary intelligence which was too vague to act on.

"In terms of ambition, it also just pointed towards something we already knew,” they said. "ISIS had hardly made it a secret it sought to target Europe”.

Al-Adnani, spokesman and senior leader for ISIS, was reportedly severely injured in an airstrike by government forces against Barwana, Iraq, last week.

He lost "a large amount of blood” in the bombing, an Iraqi military source said on Thursday, and had moved to the terror group’s Iraqi capital, Mosul, to lick his wounds.

The jihadi notoriously issued ISIS’ first instruction to attack Westerners, saying: "Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.”

An exact figure for how many Islamic State fighters are at large in Europe is unknown.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who participated in the Paris attacks, bragged that he was one of 90 in Europe.

While expert opinion suggests 30 Brit-born jihadis could be in the UK alone after returning from the Middle East.

(dailystar.co.uk)