Earlier this month, ISIS threatened Vladimir Putin with a bowie knife while sitting in the front yard:
[6]
The video apparently emanated from the group’s home office in Raqqa and the speakers also took the opportunity to congratulate their “Egyptian brothers” on the downing of Russian plane over the Sinai Peninsula, a disaster which killed all 224 people on board.
This comes as the Iranians along with Hezbollah and a group of Shiite militias battle to restore Assad under cover of Russian airstrikes. That effort is either going splendidly or not so splendidly depending on the source, but most observers agree that the tide has turned in favor of Assad and his allies thanks to Iran and Russia. A few weeks back, Iran massed its forces and began to march on Aleppo essentially going town by town in an effort to eventually rout rebel and militant forces from the city itself. Earlier this week, government forces backed by Hezbollah and the Russian broke a siege at Kweires Airport in Aleppo's eastern countryside which had been under attack by ISIS for some two years.
As the fighting continues, we might well suspect to hear from ISIS regarding the Russian “infidels” and indeed, the group has released a new video threatening, among other things, to make Russian children “slaves” and Russian wives “concubines.”
“Soon, very soon,” the group says, “the blood will spill like an ocean.”
[7]
We'll spare you the actual video, but suffice to say it's difficult to imagine sometimes that these are produced in war-torn Syria and Iraq and the production value on this particular installment is especially impressive. It's basically just an ISIS highlight reel, but we certainly doubt the Russians will appreciate the women and children references.
Meanwhile, IS Sinai (which took credit for the attack on the Russian plane) has reportedly released its own video in which a masked man standing with a machine gun first threatens the Egyptian military and then, near the end, also threatens Israel. Here's The Jerusalem Post [8]:
The speaker is a masked gunman who urges Egyptian soldiers to repent or be killed for attacking jihadists in Sinai. He claimed that the army is trying to push out the local population in order to defend Israel.
He vows that his group will resume its attacks on Israel “soon.”
He also vows that Islamic State will lead the Islamic nation, which will “rise up and uproot you [the Jews].”
“We will uproot the state of the Jews. You and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing.
You will be overrun by our creeping multitudes,” said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the “tyrants of Hamas.”
We're not entirely sure how you "creep" if you are a "multitude," but anyway, Israel now has an excuse to begin looking at what they may need to do to counter ISIS which raises the possibility that before you know it, another world military power could enter the fray.
It's also worth noting that if Israel were to jump in, they'd essentially be fighting on the same side as their mortal enemy the Iranians, which is a comically absurd outcome.
As we've said before, with each incremental entrant into the conflict, the chances of an "accident" increase exponentially and Israel isn't exaclty a military lightweight known for taking a cautious approach when threatened.
