ISIS Propaganda Out of Actors, Relying on Blind Men and Cripples
Then-candidate Donald Trump vowed during the 2016 campaign that he would “bomb the s*** out of ISIS” and utterly destroy the terrorist army if elected, and since taking office he has set about doing exactly that.
Even President Trump’s most vociferous critics have had to admit that his no-holds-barred policy of military engagement against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria has all but eliminated the self-proclaimed caliphate and reduced its fighting force to a shadow of its former intimidating self.
As evidence of this grim reality, look no further than the latest propaganda video to emerge from the small remnant of the caliphate in Deir Ezzor, Syria, along the Euphrates River, which featured a blind jihadist urging other would-be militants to join the fight regardless of any personal disability they may be afflicted with, according to PJ Media.
The video of the blind jihadist believed to be from Kazakhstan, which also featured other jihadists from the central Asian nation, was released just days after Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev met with Trump at the White House to discuss their joint efforts in combating radical Islamic terrorism.
The blind man with a white cane was seen tending to injured jihadists in a sort of medical facility. According to Newsweek, he was identified only as Abu Bakr al-Kazakhi, and called for more attacks against the West and an overthrow of the Nazarbayev government.
“My brothers and sisters, O brothers in faith, what is wrong with you? Where are you? Didn’t we dream of the Caliphate for years? And here it is, the Caliphate granted to us by Allah,” al-Kazakhi proclaimed.
“Today the world is divided onto one of two places: a land of faith and a land of disbelief,” he continued. “All the disbelieving faiths have amassed against the Caliphate, and at the same time you are procrastinating and using every lame excuse” to not join in the fight.
It is worth noting that though roughly 70 percent of Kazakhstan’s population is Muslim, the nation is generally regarded as posing a relatively low threat in regard to radicalization and terrorism, in part because the government has spent more than $1 billion over the past four years to combat such extremism.
But the video of the blind jihadist is not the only example of what the Islamic State group has been reduced to in terms of fighters, as the U.K. Daily Mail reported that this latest propaganda video came just a month after one that featured a jihadist — believed to be American — who had lost a leg fighting with the terrorist group.
The black man with a New York accent who called himself Abu Salih al-Amriki stated that having “one leg or no legs” was “no excuse” for not picking up a knife or gun to wage jihad against disbelievers.
He also strongly condemned President Trump and referred to him as a “dog of Rome” in his broader discussion of the clash of civilizations between the West and Islam.
But even he wasn’t the first jihadist with a lack of mobility to be featured by the Islamic State group as still being capable of pulling off an attack, as pictures emerged just days ago of a wheelchair-bound jihadist as he made final preparations to embark on a suicide attack against a military compound in Syria.
The man in the wheelchair was seen saying his final goodbyes to his young children prior to being placed inside a vehicle laden with explosives by two other men. His is alleged to have then driven the vehicle into the compound where it was destroyed in the explosion, though there has been no independent confirmation of that alleged attack.
To be sure, blind and crippled men can still detonate explosives and pull triggers, but it is obvious that the threat posed by the Islamic State group is far diminished from what it once was.
The fact that the terrorist organization is now trotting out blind and crippled men to recruit additional militants to its ranks in propaganda videos is the best evidence yet that the group is nearing the end of its once terrible and feared reign over the region.
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