ISLAMIC State butchers have issued a chilling new threat at Christmas – by posting a sick picture depicting a slain Santa in a British high street.

A balaclava-clad militant stands over the prone figure of Father Christmas on a cobbled road outside an antiques store, Fenwick & Fenwick.

Chilling text at the bottom of the poster reads: “O pigs of the cross, the day is near when your carnage will be gifts for your children.”

Disturbingly, there was an antiques store in the Cotswolds called Fenwick & Fenwick – the front of which looked similar to the artwork in the threatening poster.

However, the owner told the Sun Online today that the shop has recently been "closed".

Rita Katz, director of the international terrorism study group Site Intel, said that by “using Christmas symbols like Santa Claus and depicting streets in England, IS-aligned groups [are] warning of attacks.”

Terror police in the UK are taking such threats seriously following the murders of five people at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg.

The death toll from the attack increased to five on Sunday night after a Polish man died of his wounds in a Strasbourg hospital.

Barto Orent-Niedzielski, 36, lived in the city where he worked at the European Parliament and as a journalist.

The other casualties included a tourist from Thailand and an Italian journalist covering the European Parliament.

According to some reports, Orent-Niedzielski fought the shooter and stopped him from entering a crowded club, possibly preventing more deaths.

A man suspected of supplying the gun that was used in the shooting attack was handed preliminary terror charges yesterday, said a judicial official close to the investigation.

He is suspected of furnishing the weapon that murderous Cherif Chekatt used in the December 11 attack, the judicial official said. He was remanded into custody.

Chekatt, 29, died in a shootout with police in Strasbourg last Thursday.

In the days leading up to the outrage, messaging platforms used by ISIS supporters were awash with talk of a lone world strike in Europe.

In the wake of Strasbourg and in view of Christmas holidays, security measures continue to be beefed up, including across France and in Italy, at train stations and airports.

Italian police said yesterday they had arrested a 20-year-old Somali man suspected of having been a member of Islamic State.

The man had allegedly threatened to bomb churches in Italy, including St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

Cops told reporters in Bari that the man, identified as Omar Moshin Ibrahim, was detained last Thursday.

A magistrate officially charged him on Monday with instigating terrorism and supporting terrorism.

Police said Ibrahim was stopped following a month-long surveillance operation as he was about to leave Bari where he worked for a cleaning company.

Officials said their investigation included using wiretaps in which Ibrahim was heard telling someone: "Let's put bombs in all the churches of Italy. Where is the largest church? It is in Rome."

In another conversation, they said, he was heard praising those who "killed on the path of Allah" and hailing last week's shooting at the Strasbourg Christmas market in which a gunman killed five people.

Police added that the man used the alias of Anas Khalil, called himself "Yusuf" on social media, and had arrived in Italy in 2016.

He was suspected of having been a militant of Islamic State previously.

The latest calls for attacks in the West come as operations to snuff out the last remaining pockets of resistance in Iraq and Syria continue.

And one former ISIS commander has revealed he believes US forces are searching for the regime’s gold reserves worth £368 million in the Syrian desert.

Abu Zeid al-Ambari said: “Only seven people knew where the gold was hidden; two were killed, one went missing; and now the US and PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] are trying to seize the gold.”

He said that after the strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq were taken the group’s so-called finance ministry created a ‘gold pool’.

Al-Ambari added that they are searching for seven tons of gold and 17 tons of silver hoarded by the terror group near the city of Hajin in Deir Ezzor province.

They are being helped by the PKK, according to the former senior ISIS member.

Leaders laid the infrastructure to funnel all the gold from occupied cities to this reserve.

He said: “A special delegation was created for this purpose, and in 2015 they began to press gold and silver coins and put them into circulation.”

The terror group used a large income from oil, cereal and trade activities, to secure gold.