In a new video, ISIS threatens to murder Westerners through a wide range of new means, including poisoning of food and drink and hit-and-run attacks. This marks an increase in ambitious threats as ISIS (also known as Islamic State, ISIL, and Daesh) calls on Muslims to wage “jihad in the path of Allah” using easily accessible weapons.
The seven-minute video, entitled, What Are You Waiting For, opens with a group of Francophone ISIS fighters denouncing the West and throwing their French passports into campfire. French is the spoken language in the video, which also contains Arabic and English subtitles. One jihadi known as Abu Osama Al-Faranci, states: “This is a message from your French brothers who have made Hijra, to the Muslims who are still living in the land of Kufr.” In other words, it is an appeal by ISIS fighters who have emigrated to lands controlled by the Islamic State to Muslims living in the land of the infidelity.
Though the fighters in the video mostly speak to Muslims living in France, they also have a broader audience in mind; for instance, Abu Maryam al-Franci addresses “those Muslims in France and elsewhere.”
The jihadis featured in the video implore Muslims to make “Hijra” and emigrate to lands controlled by the Islamic State. But if Muslims do not emigrate, Abu Maryam (holding a machine gun and a machete) reminds them, “Indeed you have been ordered to fight the Kafir [unbeliever/non-Muslim] wherever you find him” and encourages Muslims in the West to attack civilians in their home countries.