Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Clinton's not going to like this recruitment video.
"A propaganda video the ISIS terror army released last month in several languages used the image of former U.S. President Bill Clinton as a rallying point, calling him a 'fornicator' whose wishes were carried out by America's military in the last decade of the 20th Century.
The four-minute video, titled 'No Respite,' urges male Muslims to take up the cause of the ISIS 'caliphate' and counter the influence of America."
Trump isn't in ISIS recruitment videos. 'Fornicator' Bill Clinton is
At the Dec. 22 press briefing, Col. Steve Warren handed out copies of two documents recovered by Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) in fighting around Fallujah: "The first one is a document that ISF recovered from an ISIL unit," Warren said. "It provides ISIL fighters with instructions on how to behave when they withdraw from Fallujah. The document appears to be a formal order directing ISIL's fighters to impersonate Iraqi Security Forces and to commit atrocities against the civilian population before they withdraw.
Iraqi forces battle with ISIL fighters as they defend their base outside Fallujah.
"The fighters in this order are directed to film their actions, distribute the videos, and to do all this in order to discredit both the ISF and the government of Iraq. Some of the acts that they're instructed to do on this -- on this document...include blowing up mosques, killing and torturing civilians, breaking into homes, and do it all while dressed as ISF or Popular Mobilization Force fighters. And they do this all in order to place blame and to discredit them. "Clearly, this isn't the behavior of a legitimate government or of a legitimate military force, it's the behavior of thugs, it's the behavior of killers and it's the behavior of terrorists."
The second document bans people living inside ISIL's self-proclaimed caliphate from watching television or from buying, installing or reapiring satellite systems, Warren said. "ISIL claims that this ban is to protect them from corrupting their faith, that those living inside the caliphate who are found to be violating this order says will face -- says that they'll face punishment and embarrassment. "So the reason I bring this up is to illustrate, you know, where ISIL is right now, and it -- I would submit to you that we're starting to see a change in their behavior that may be related to some desperation. "They appear to be trying to hide information regarding the recent string of defeats as we continue to -- you know, to kill their leaders, to increase the security capacity of our regional partners and to strike them across the battlefield and all of their formation. It seems like they're beginning to feel the pressure."
MORE
With a fighting force of anywhere between 25,000 to 60,000, Islamic State militants control millions of people, thousands of square kilometers of land, and terrorize the world. More than 9,000 punishing airstrikes, reams of satellite imagery and a plethora of local and international military forces on the ground have yet to have significant effect. Even the victory of Iraqi forces in Ramadi, an IS-held city west of Baghdad, does not appear to have crippled the extremist group. Instead, they turned their considerable force to another city, Haditha. Why is the group so hard to defeat?
Fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul, Iraq.
Unconventional tactics
The problem, said Widdershoven, is the United States, European and Iraqi forces continue to think of IS as a conventional military focused on holding ground. “That is the old fashioned approach: you take one city after another. For ISIS, in their overall strategy, they don’t feel as if they are losing. They see it as ‘OK, you want A, you can have A; we will go for B, and if you want B, C, or D, we will attack where you are not’.”
This map shows areas cleared and airstrikes in Anbar Province, Iraq, by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.
Islamic State commanders have excelled at gaming strategies out, and turning battlefield losses to their advantage, analysts say. “They are human; they will take losses. That is all part of the game,” said Kamran Bokhari, a Middle East and Countering Violent Extremism expert at the University of Ottawa. “But when they get hit, do they become incoherent, or are we looking at an orderly retreat? I think it is an orderly retreat,” Bokhari told VOA. “This is not a demoralized force that is defeated.”
Learn from mistakes
According to the most recent estimate, more than 34,000 foreign fighters from at least 120 countries have now gone to fight in Iraq and Syria, a U.S. intelligence official told VOA on condition of anonymity. Of those, at least 6,000 are Westerners. Those numbers are up from previous estimates issued in October 2015, when officials said there were more than 30,000 foreign fighters from at least 115 countries, including more than 4,500 from the West.
Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they wave the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, Iraq
Number of US recruits unchanged
The number of Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria or Iraq “to fight or otherwise support the conflict” has remained unchanged, intelligence officials said, at approximately 250. Officials familiar with the estimates caution that the increase in the number is likely due to several factors, including improved reporting as well as ongoing intelligence efforts to identify individuals. Former intelligence officials say the majority of those fighters likely traveled to the battlefront following the fall of Mosul to Islamic State militants in June 2014. “It’s tapered off because it’s physically gotten harder there and nations are cracking down more, not just the U.S.,” said Patrick Skinner, a former intelligence officer now with The Soufan Group, a strategic security intelligence consultancy.
Two men accused of fighting with the co-called Islamic State militant group hide their faces before their trial in Germany
He warns it has not been enough to deter would-be foreign fighters. “As long as people are willing to go there, they can get there,” Skinner said. “We’ve overestimated our ability to detect and disrupt extremist travel.” And while defense officials say there is growing evidence Islamic State is being forced to turn to conscription, the group continues to be buoyed by a steady influx of recruits - enough to maintain a constant force of 20,000 to 30,000 fighters.
Spanish police arrest a man, left, accused of collaborating with the Islamic State, after searching a cybercafe in Mataro near to Barcelona
Through the end of 2015, slightly more than 1,000 foreign fighters a month were joining Islamic State, a U.S. official familiar with the data told VOA. The official also said the most popular route continued to be crossing into Syria from Turkey, despite Turkish efforts to crack down along the border. “All of it is done through smuggling networks in Turkey, operating though Turkey, in Iraq and certainly in Syria,” Mubin Shaikh, an ex-security and Canadian counterintelligence operative, told VOA via Skype. “There’s some attention on the networks,” he said. “But there really isn’t a focus on attacking the networks and making that the framework in which the defeat of ISIS is supposed to be applied.”
Young people, women drawn to jihad
The Islamic State group (IS) has built a research center devoted to launching attacks in the West, using driverless cars and rehabilitated anti-aircraft missiles, new footage from inside the terror group reveals. The center is in the group’s Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, where technicians from around the world have been plotting to wreak chaos outside of the self-declared caliphate’s borders, according to the group’s own fighters and members of the Syrian opposition who seized the film from an Islamic State member in Turkey. The footage, obtained by Sky News, sheds light on a research and development arm of the organization that has long been the subject of speculation, but has not previously been confirmed.
It also confirms accounts from IS members, as well as the fears of European intelligence agencies, that the IS is working to step up attacks in Europe following the coordinated bombing and shooting rampage that killed more than 130 people in Paris in November last year. Among the new revelations, which the IS did not intend, are efforts to make defunct surface-to-air missiles operational again by replacing thermal batteries — a feat that has so far been beyond the capabilities of other terror groups. The footage does not establish that such a goal has been achieved, but it does show the technological ambitions of a group that has carved out its influence in Syria and Iraq through more familiar forms of terror, such as car bombs and suicide belts.
A man rides a bike near damaged buildings in the town of Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus
Surface-to-air missiles falling into the hands of the IS, or any terror group, is considered near the top of worst-case scenarios for Western and regional officials. Such weapons have been repeatedly demanded by the Western-backed Syrian opposition over the past three years of the Syrian war. However the US has insisted that none be allowed into Syria, fearing that no group could safeguard them. Among the eight hours of video, which was seized by the Free Syrian Army and passed on to Sky News, is a segment showing IS members trying to maneuver a driverless car. They are also shown busily strapping tape and padding to a mannequin, in the hope it will give off the same heat signature as a human when it passes by imaging scanners, which are often used near sensitive buildings.
The militants’ aim to carry out terror attacks in Europe has steadily been revealed over the past three months, via a rash of propaganda videos that clearly state intended targets. More importantly though, since early last autumn, intelligence agencies have found evidence of numerous new plots in the making. Electronic “chatter,” as well as information from defectors and still serving IS members, underscores that the group is now more intent than ever on exporting chaos to cities such as Rome, Paris, Brussels and London. In particular, intelligence agencies fear the IS has managed to smuggle a small number of its members into Europe. They would be intended to act as sleeper cells that can train local recruits in how to carry out the attacks. There are fears that the eight hours of captured footage was to be used as a blueprint for attacks and that other members have made it through Turkey and to their destinations.
MORE
