Prince George's name on IS hit list: report

Threat issued on social media

October 29, 2017 10:41 pm | Updated 11:09 pm IST - London/Beirut

Prince George in London in December 2014.

Prince George in London in December 2014.

Britain’s Prince George is on the hit list of the Islamic State (IS), which has threatened to kill the four-year-old son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, according to a U.K. media report. The threat appeared as part of a message posted by IS members on social media.

Prince George, who is the third-in-line to the British throne, had started his term at a primary school near the family’s Kensington Palace home in central London last month.

Posted on Telegram

According to the Star on Sunday , a picture was posted of George next to his new school, Thomas’s Battersea, with the caption “school starts early” on a popular IS channel on the secretive messaging service Telegram.

The IS is known to favour Telegram because messages are encrypted and keep the user’s location hidden.

The newspaper claimed that its investigators discovered the message that seemed to target the young royal. It said the post also featured words in Arabic which translate as — “When war comes with the melody of bullets, we descend on disbelief, desiring retaliation.”

British intelligence officials are believed to be regularly monitoring the messaging service for IS activity.

Security concerns

Concerns about security at George’s school have already been raised after a woman filmed herself wandering its corridors unchallenged days before the term started. Weeks later, a woman was arrested at the school on suspicion of attempted burglary.

The Metropolitan Police had said it would be reviewing security arrangements at the school following the arrest.

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