Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the spokesperson whose previous statements may have inspired gunmen in Australia and France, said any loyalist who has the opportunity to "shed a drop of blood" should do so.

In an audio recording released on Monday, he also praised the Paris attacks, Sydney siege and a failed plot to murder police officers in Belgium.

The lone gunman who shot a soldier at Canada’s national war memorial dead before storming the parliament building in October was also held up as an example to be followed.

Al-Adnani also spoke about the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, saying Muslims should be "happy for the death of the tyrant of the peninsula".

His relatively moderate stance would have been an offence to Isis’ violent brand of Sunni extremism.

In September last year, al-Adnani issued another bloody decree to followers, telling them to kill "a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State”.

His address continued: "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.”

Security services were reportedly on "high alert” for a beheading attack in Britain earlier this month after online "chatter” by jihadists discussing plans to murder soldiers, police and intelligence operatives.

It was feared that extremists want to copy Isis’ killing of James Foley, David Haines, Alan Henning and other hostages last year by abducting a target and posting footage of their death on the internet.

The emergence of Isis in Syria and Iraq was one of the factors causing the UK’s terrorist threat level to be raised to "severe” in August, meaning that an attack is deemed "highly likely” but not imminent.

Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris, had pledged allegiance to Isis, while Charlie Hebdo gunmen Said and Cherif Kouachi claimed to represent al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Britain has faced four major terrorist plots in the past year, three of them in the past few months alone, the head of MI5 said, while warning that the lethal threat from Islamist extremists, including those home-grown, continues to grow.

Security services and police in the UK and across Europe continue to be on high alert for plots and a wave of anti-terror arrests has recently swept the continent.

(independent.co.uk)