(Image source from: Death Toll reaches to 100 in France)

On Friday, Islamic State unleashed a fresh round of attacks in three continents across the world. The bloodshed took away scores of civilians lives and made many hospitalized.  The attacks targeted each country in a particularly sensitive spot.

Tunisia, widely hailed as the sole success of the Arab Spring uprisings that began more than four years ago, suffered a sharp blow to its tourism sector, a pillar of the local economy.

The bombing in Kuwait followed the pattern of similar attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia and was aimed at sowing sectarian divisions in a country where Sunnis and Shiites serve together in top government bodies and open friction between the sects is uncommon.

The motivation behind the attack in France was less clear, although the beheading suggested that the perpetrator had at least been inspired by the Islamic State, which frequently propagandizes similar executions in the territories it occupies.

And because the day's events appeared to bear some of the infamous hallmarks of the Islamic State and its supporters, some analysts speculated that the attacks had been timed to mark the first anniversary of its declaration of a caliphate. Even if that is not the case, the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist propaganda, said the attacks inspired "celebration from Twitter Accounts of Jihadi fighters and supporters of the Islamic State."

Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie ...Middle East Center in Beirut, said, "We have entered a new jihadist era," adding that the Islamic State had used its international brand to establish sleeper cells abroad, whose actions were meant to advance its efforts to build a state.

"Everything in the end serves the purpose of strengthening the project of the Islamic State," she said.

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials were looking into the connections among them. But so far, they are clueless whether the terror outwing  has directly involved, co-ordinated, or inspired the plots.

- Manohar. M