ISIS followers could attack venues or crowd members at this year's FIFA World Cup in a fresh act of "war" against the West.
16:32, Thu, Mar 12, 2026 Updated: 16:36, Thu, Mar 12, 2026
The terror group have previously targeted major international events with large crowds (Image: Getty)
ISIS is reportedly encouraging its followers to target the FIFA World Cup for "mass casualty" terror attacks. The Islamic State group named the 2026 football tournament as one of its top priorities in upcoming attacks against the West in a monthly "magazine", according to LBC. Tens of thousands of Brits are set to join sports fans around the globe flocking to the US in three months' time for the event, which will be jointly hosted by America, Canada and Mexico.
Neil Basu, former head of UK Counter Terror Policing, said: "Since 2014, since [ISIS] declared war on the West, they have been routinely calling for attacks on iconic venues, or - when they change the methodology - to attack people in a crowd. There isn't any counter-terrorism professional in the western world who would not have been preparing for this, even if they hadn't seen [the magazine]."
ISIS has previously threatened major sporting events including the European Championships (Image: Getty)
Extremism expert and former Prevent officer Dr Charlotte Littlewood added that football has "always been a target" for ISIS.
"We saw adverts saying 'kill them all' for the European Championships last year, and there have been targets against Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, images of them with blood on their faces for the World Cup back in 2018," she said.
"So this is something that the security services in the UK and across the world have to be concerned about and very prepared for. And they are - they know that ISIS targets big crowds."
Dr Littlewood added that the terror group was aiming to create a "hostile environment" where "Muslim communities are divided from the rest of the UK citizens" to feed into their "prophetic 'end of days' notion".
England are favourites to win this year's World Cup, with Scotland also qualifying for the first time since 1998.
The June event hit headlines this week as Iranian sports minister Ahmad Donyamali appeared to rule out the possibility of the country taking part after US-Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month, sparking retaliatory attacks on other Middle East countries.
He reportedly told Iranian state television: "Considering that this corrupt regime has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup.
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"Our children are not safe and, fundamentally, such conditions for participation do not exist. Given the malicious actions they have carried out against Iran, they have forced two wars on us over eight or nine months and have killed and martyred thousands of our people. Therefore, we certainly cannot have such a presence."
US President Donald Trump said he "really didn't care" if Iran played at the World Cup earlier this month. Tehran is currently due to play all three of their group games at the summer finals in the US and could even face the co-hosts in the round of 32 if both finish second in their group.
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