UNTIL the American-led coalition started bombing Islamic State (IS), the group was focused on spilling the blood of fellow Muslims and minorities rather than Westerners—in contrast with al-Qaeda before it. But last August, when air strikes began in Iraq, IS started beheading American and British hostages. And when the bombing extended to Syria a month later, IS urged devotees to attack Westerners wherever they were found. A spokesman helpfully suggested several methods, including poisoning and car accidents.

Grimly, extremists have taken up the call, both in the West and, increasingly, in the Middle East. This week the British and Canadian embassies in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, closed their doors for two days, citing unspecified threats. In November, a Dane was shot in the shoulder when leaving work in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in an attack filmed by IS supporters. Separately, a Canadian was stabbed in a shopping centre in the eastern province.

Most shocking of all was the attack on December 1st in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, when a local woman stabbed and killed an American schoolteacher, Ibolya Ryan, in the bathroom of a shopping centre. The attacker then planted a makeshift bomb at the door of an American doctor. Only a month earlier, jihadist web forums had suggested American teachers and schools in the region were desirable targets.

Anti-Western violence is thus returning to places that recently appeared safe. In Egypt visitors have been repeatedly targeted: in 1997 gunmen in Luxor killed 62 people, and bombers attacked tourist hotels in Sinai in 2004-05. But after the Arab spring protests of 2011 and the restoration of military rule last year, life for foreigners has settled down and tourists have started to return to the beaches and ancient sites. Similarly in Saudi Arabia, after a rash of al-Qaeda bombings ended in 2005, oil-workers and businessmen have got on with normal life. And the UAE long appeared to be a peaceful oasis; almost 90% of its 9.3m people are foreigners, including tens of thousands of Britons.

Attacks in the West, though infrequent, also appear to be rising. On October 23rd a radical Muslim wounded two policemen in New York with an axe. That came a day after a man in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, shot dead a ceremonial sentry at the war memorial and then ran into the parliament, where he was shot and killed.

Such attacks appear to be perpetrated by “lone wolves” rather than by organised groups. Governments can attempt to monitor IS affiliates—such as the Algerian group that beheaded a French tourist in September; and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the Egyptian group that renamed itself “Sinai Province” of IS’s self-declared caliphate. But individuals acting alone or in small cells are harder to identify. They can get ideas from the internet rather than having to make contact with any organisation.

For the most part, it is still the people of the region who suffer most. Jihadist violence has been predominantly directed at non-Muslim minorities, Shias, Sunni tribes that dare resist IS’s rule, as well as fighters from rival armies and militias. Hundreds have been executed by IS as it has extended its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Beyond, eight Shias were killed in Saudi Arabia last month by suspected IS sympathisers. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has killed scores of Egyptian soldiers in bombings this year.

It makes for a new trend in jihadist violence. Whereas al-Qaeda still seeks to organise spectacular attacks on the West, IS is discovering that undirected, smaller-scale attacks might be just as unnerving.