It’s a massive threat that could threaten to completely level parts of our country. And it’s coming from ISIS extremists.
According to the Free Beacon, radicals have been using an extremist-controlled media outlets to send a message to their followers across Europe and the United States, urging them to begin setting forest fires and burning countries to the ground.
The goal of the Islamic State is to reportedly cause mass ecological damage and create a massive public health crisis that would dismantle certain areas of the United States as well as European nations, according to an online forum occupied by the terrorist group.
In addition to the messages being spread over the air to anyone who might be listening and influenced by the messages encouraging terrorism, ISIS members have also reportedly begun displaying propaganda posters with a similar message.
“Oh monotheists [ISIS followers], ignite fires in the forests and fields, and we are addressing especially those who live in Europe and America, for they are painful to them,” the posters read.
The Washington Examiner reported that the Middle East Media Research Institute keeps tabs on messages between extremist groups. They noted that the first of these propaganda flyers began appearing back in April, but began resurfacing on Monday.
The institute says that the newest flyers went so far as to single out the individual countries that followers should set their sights on and attack.
“Ignite fires in the forests of America, France, Britain, and Germany, for they are painful to them,” the latest one read.
ISIS fanatics are urged to attack America and Europe with forest fires and spark ecological carnage https://t.co/wgUqeXmkcx
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 6, 2019
This comes while part of our country is already in flames. California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency over the raging forest fires that have become all too routine year after year.
Last week, members of the United States military led a raid in an attempt to capture or kill the current leader of the extremist group. During the operation, Donald Trump says that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed, blowing himself up using a suicide bomb.
On Thursday, ISIS leaders confirmed that their leader had indeed been killed and announced that a new leader, identified as Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurashi but whose real name has been kept private, would be taking over.
Despite reports that the terror group had been largely wiped out, ISIS members have released public statements saying that the group “stands at the threshold of Europe and Central Africa…. It is expanding and remaining, with permission from Allah, from the east to the west.”
“Do not be happy O America, for the death of Sheikh al-Baghdadi, and do not forget the cups of death at his hands,” Abu Hamza said in a message to our country, even adding in a shot at President Trump. “Do you not look how at how you have become the joke of the nations, your fate controlled by a stupid old man, who goes to sleep with one opinion and wakes up with another?”
ISIS urges followers to 'ignite fires' in forests across US and Europe https://t.co/vJaW8VdaY8 pic.twitter.com/TiUoyUzdXz
— New York Post (@nypost) November 6, 2019
Mass groups of ISIS fighters have been caught and detained in Syrian prisons. When a team of journalists from the United States gained access inside, they discovered a man from the United States who had run off to join the extremist group. Now he wants to come home — but nobody wants him.
He says he ran away and joined ISIS so that he could live under Islamic law. But now that he’s sick, missing an arm from an air strike and stuck in a prison filled with thousands of other ISIS fighters, this Minneapolis man wants to come back to America.
But here’s the problem. He thinks he should be forgiven for his crimes and shouldn’t have to face jail time if he comes home.
We’re talking about Abdelhamid Al-Madioum, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen who was recruited by ISIS in 2015. CBS News recently interviewed him from a prison in Northern Syria.
The prison is backed by the United States and is run by a Syrian militia. It’s now home to more than 5,000 prisoners, all suspected ISIS terrorists. CBS says that the guards there have said that notorious extremist leaders as well as bomb makers and other criminal masterminds are among the jail population.
Al-Madioum told CBS in their interview that he had originally been contacted through a message on the social media platform, Twitter. He said that after agreeing to speak with someone within the Islamic State, he was ‘bombarded’ with ISIS propaganda videos, explaining how the cause was benefiting Muslims – not the bloody beheadings we often associate the group with.
The threat of ISIS fighters breaking out of the massive prison camps where they're being held in Syria and Iraq is growing, according to a new report and a senior U.S. official https://t.co/X8faZAp4GD
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 25, 2019
Supposedly believing that the ISIS attacks he saw on the news were false – made up to push an agenda – Al-Madioum entered the extremist group’s territory in 2015. He told CBS that his hopes were to become a doctor and help with the cause.
“They gave me a blank check to buy whatever I wanted,” Al-Madioum said.
He, among many others inside the prison, claim that they were never ISIS fighters, but had been swept up in the movement. Al-Madioum said that he lost his arm in a U.S. airstrike.
“I just wanted to live under Islamic law,” he said.
Apparently the Minneapolis native is fed up with living alongside the known terror group and now longs to come back to America.
But here’s the thing… he’s guilty of a number of serious crimes.
Al-Madioum has reportedly spoken with officials within the FBI, who have told him that he faces about 15 years behind bars for his traitorous actions.
But Al-Madioum doesn’t think he should have to face any prison time at all, saying the mistreatment and suffering he’s been through over there has been punishment enough.
“Fifteen years is a very long time for mistakes you made coming to Syria,” he said. “The choices that I made in somebody’s eyes are the wrong choices, so I face jail time.”
Al-Madioum told CBS that if his situation doesn’t improve soon, his time might be up.
“I’m going to die soon here,” he said. “I am sick. I do not get any medical attention.”
Apparently the Syrian militia has thousands of prisoners that they want to get out of their overcrowded facility… but other countries aren’t willing to take them back.
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