The animated tightly-produced video is entitled "Incite the Believers" and many of the scenes are engulfed in flames and, as with previous terrorist "message" videos, it encourages violent criminal acts against Western civilization. This time, ISIS is encouraging followers to start fires for maximum damage and carnage.
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In Arabic, the narrator encourages followers to use cigarette lighters, matches and gasoline to start fires in places where they won't be detected in retribution for U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan the past nearly two decades.
The focus on arson is similar to an Al Qaeda directive to its followers a decade ago, first reported by the I-Team, in which followers were told to use pick-up trucks and plow them into crowded sidewalks. The edition of a terrorist magazine then known as "Inspire" featured the skyline of Chicago with an article about turning regular vehicles into "mowing machines."
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A few years later Al Qaeda urged individual jihadists to use kitchen knives, pressure cookers and other household products for their own one-person attacks on America. Perhaps in 2020, with fewer public places filled with people because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, terror leaders are gravitating to arson because fires could find victims long after the terrorist has gone home and bring out first responders at the same time.
In a vivid reminder that the U.S. is still involved in a war on terror, overseas American forces attacked an ISIS compound in Somalia Tuesday. According to U.S. military officials, seven ISIS terrorists were killed in the air strike they say was in cooperation with the Somali government. Just last month the U.S. increased its bounty on the new leader of ISIS to 10-million dollars.