Emmanuel Macron has suggested the formation of an international coalition to combat Hamas similar to the one deployed against the Islamic State several years ago. The president of France floated the idea on Tuesday during his visit to Israel.

An Elysee source later fleshed out the proposal in more detail. ‘We are available to build a coalition against Hamas or to include Hamas in what we are already doing in the coalition against Isis,’ said the source, adding that as well as operations on the ground, the coalition is ‘involved in the training of Iraqi forces, the sharing of information between partners, and the fight against terrorism funding.’

Isis is far from finished, contrary to what Macron appears to believe is the case

That seems to imply that the fight against Isis is not only going well but is centred in Iraq, where the caliphate was proclaimed in 2014 and where it collapsed five years later. Job done, believed much of the West at the time, including the then American president. ‘They have lost all prestige and power,’ declared Donald Trump in March 2019.

The Islamic State’s setback was short-lived. They no longer have a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, but they do have a base in Afghanistan. According to a recent Pentagon report, Isis is using this country ‘to plan and coordinate attacks across the globe’. A prominent French-Iraqi security expert warned earlier this year that the Islamist terror group has ambitions to carry out a large-scale atrocity in a major European city such as Paris, Berlin or London, similar to the massacre of 130 Parisians in 2015.

The other region where Isis is laying down roots is the rural parts of central Africa. Here, they are getting plenty of practice in mass murder, giving the lie to those Western powers that boast of their diminution.

Occasionally, the Islamists’ indiscriminate brutality does make the news, such as the murder in Uganda last week of a British businessman and his South African wife as they honeymooned in a national park. Their Ugandan guide was also killed, reportedly by the Isis-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Usually, however, the attacks warrant just a few lines in the Western press, such as the carnage on Monday evening in a suburb of Oicha, a town in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ADF swept into the town and butchered 26 people with knives, 12 of whom were children.

A similar number were murdered in January as they drank in the village bar at Makugwe. Homes were burned and several women were carried off into the bush.

In April, more than 20 farmers were killed in a village west of Oicha. Some were tied to a wooden frame and tortured before their throats were slit.

Now and again, on a slow news day in the West, these acts of evil do make headlines. In June this year the ADF attacked a school in western Uganda, hacking 20 children to death with machetes and incinerating 17 others with firebombs.

This monstrosity appeared not to matter to Western celebrities and activists, normally so quick to take to the street to protest against social injustice. Left-wing politicians who wring their hands about the suffering of Palestinian children appear indifferent to the pain and misery of Ugandans and Congolese.

The ADF has murdered thousands of civilians in central Africa in recent years, a slaughter that has increased as they have grown in size and strength. In March 2021, The George Washington University published an extremism report on the Islamic State in Congo in which it detailed how the ADF probably affiliated with Isis as early as 2017.

As is so often the case with Islamist extremists there is a London connection. According to the report, ADF links to the British capital stretch back to the 1990s. This was the decade when the French intelligence services rechristened the city ‘Londonistan’ such was the hospitality offered to the Islamic extremists from around the world.

The report stated that: ‘The ADF’s support networks in London reportedly remain intact and may have expanded as of the time of this report’s publication, reflecting a broadening of support that includes British citizens.’ In its conclusion, the George Washington report lamented that the crimes committed by the ADF ‘have been insufficient to rally significant international attention’.

This may change, of course, should the ADF export its Islamist terrorism into Europe. ‘The ADF has established transnational links across Africa and beyond that underscore its potential to threaten well beyond eastern Congo,’ stated the report. ‘The Islamic State’s promotion of the ADF’s struggle will strengthen its appeal as an attractive option for foreign fighters wishing to support its global jihad.’

Isis is far from finished, contrary to what Macron appears to believe is the case; nor will Hamas be defeated any time soon. This is a war against an ideology that is embraced by many millions around the world, including presidents, Ayatollahs and emirs.

But it is not just in Tehran and Turkey where the slaughter of Israelis is celebrated; there is also jubilation on the streets of Europe, where Jews now live in fear. In the three weeks since Hamas attacked Israel, 719 antisemitic acts have been recorded in France for which the police have arrested 389 people.

There is also a deepening alliance between these extremists and many within the European political and cultural left who, in their desire to decolonise their continent, regard Islamists as an ally. That explains the refusal to condemn Hamas or describe them as terrorists; instead, they refer to them as a ‘resistance movement’.

But the movement to which Hamas and Isis belong is not one of resistance but rather one of global Islamic revolution. It is expanding across the globe, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Africa, and its next objective is the takeover of Europe.