The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (19 page)

The fervent young convert also boasted to law enforcement officials that America is full of Islamic State supporters, all just biding their time and waiting for the right moment to strike: “We’re here in Ohio, we’re in every state. We’re more organized than you think.”
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Cornell requested a clock and a prayer mat so that he could continue his devout observance of Islam while in prison.
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Prison officials, for their part, saw no incongruity in allowing the jihadi to steep himself in the beliefs and perspectives that had led him into treason and a plot to commit mass murder in the first place.

#CalamityWillBefallUS

There were many more threats to spill infidel blood in the United States and all over the West. The
audacity and brutality of the Islamic State led Muslims (and even some non-Muslims) to sympathize with it, and even to issue threats in its name. And with ISIS calling repeatedly for lone wolf attacks in the West, the distinction between threats issued by actual Islamic State members and those who were not, but identified with it, was exceedingly fine.

Just before ISIS declared itself the caliphate, a group of jihadis from Great Britain who had joined the jihad in Syria produced a video in which they vowed that “the black flag of jihad” would soon wave over Downing Street. Another young British Muslim, Muhammad Hassan, threatened more attacks on the scale of 9/11 in the United States if the Americans moved against ISIS. Another, Junaid Hussain, took to Twitter to predict chaos in Britain: “Imagine if someone were to detonate a bomb at voting stations or ambushed the vans that carry the casted [sic] votes. It would mess the whole system up. . . . Watch out. . . . We’ll come back and wreak havoc.”
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A week before the declaration that the caliphate was restored, an American convert to Islam threatened the president on Twitter, writing, “Obama your days are numbered. You have nowhere to hide. Your family is first on our list. We will find you and remove your filthy heads!!” In another, he added that “soon” ISIS would “encompass the entire world.”
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And on June 25, 2014, four days before the announcement of the restoration of the caliphate, ISIS supporters began a Twitter campaign featuring the hashtag #CalamityWillBefallUS. In the next four days, this hashtag was used almost twenty-four thousand times, with a large number of tweets featuring threats against the United States.
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Credible Threats

In October 2014, the Islamic State’s online magazine
Dabiq
featured on its cover a photoshopped picture of the black flag of jihad flying over St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
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While many plots have been foiled, supporters of the Islamic State have succeeded in killing enough people in Western countries that it’s not safe to dismiss their threats as fantasies. When the Politico website misreported the words of Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota to give the impression that she was calling for the United States to go to war against the Islamic State, this aroused the ire of ISIS to such an extent that they issued threats to Bachmann; federal officials took them seriously enough to place her under twenty-four hour guard.
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There was good reason to place such a guard around Bachmann, and to be alert to the general possibility of Islamic State violence in Europe and the United States. Adding to the very realistic concerns about potential terrorist recruits already at home in Western countries, a veteran Turkish smuggler claimed in November 2014 that he had sent “more than ten” Islamic State jihadis into Europe. His claim couldn’t be proven, but it was eminently plausible: he said he charged $2,500 for every person he brought out of the Islamic State and into Europe through Turkey, and that the jihadis he had helped get to Europe were pretending to be refugees.

But according to the smuggler they are actually jihadis biding their time: “They are waiting for their orders. Just wait. You will see. . . . The Western world thinks there is no ISIS in their countries—that all the jihadis have gone to fight and die in Syria.” He recalled that one of the Islamic State jihadis he helped get to Europe told him about Muslims from Europe who had been killed in Syria, “We are sending our fighters to take their places.” He told the smuggler, “We want you to bring our brothers too.” The smuggler noted that it was easy for them to go to Europe. “They can come to any smuggler and say they are refugees.”
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In December 2014, Aaron Wieder, an orthodox Jew and member of the Rockland County Legislature in New York State, was opening his mail when he came upon a strange and jarring image: a photograph of an Islamic State
beheading with his own face pasted over that of the victim. The photo was captioned simply “Aaron Wieder,” with “Harun” (Arabic for Aaron), written in Arabic script above it. The Arabic writing suggests that the person who was making the threat was not just someone who saw the Islamic State beheadings on the news and thought they were cool. It could have been just someone who thought that the Islamic State’s gleeful evil was worthy of emulation and who happened to know some Arabic—or it could have been an actual Islamic State operative in the U.S.

Said Wieder, “I opened the letter and I was completely shocked. I literally had shivers running down my spine.” Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco remarked, “We’re taking this very seriously as a threat and will be working with our partners in law enforcement and the FBI to try to track down who sent this.”
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In March of 2015, a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division helped out Muslims in the U.S. who were thirsty for infidel blood by publishing online the names, addresses, photographs, and units of a hundred members of the United States Air Force, Navy, and Marines.

The Hacking Division proclaimed:

           
These Kuffar that drop bombs over Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Khurasan [Afghanistan] and Somalia are from the same lands that you reside in, so when will you take action? Know that it is wajib [an Islamic religious duty] for you to kill these kuffar [unbelievers]! and now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you
waiting for? Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking they are safe.

                
We have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?

                
You crusaders that fight the Islamic State, we say to you: “Die in your rage!”
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The Islamic State published the photos of these members of the U.S. military in the hope that there would be Muslims in the U.S. who would heed their call to kill them.

#WeWillBurnAmerica

Combining its penchant for threats with its social media acumen, in April 2015 the Islamic State released a video and simultaneously a hashtag, both with the same theme: “We Will Burn America,” vowing yet again to mount a major jihad attack, on the scale of 9/11, inside the United States (spelling and grammar as in the original):

           
America thinks its safe because of the geographical location

           
Thus you see it invades the Muslim lands, and it thinks that the army of the Jihad wont reach in their lands

           
But the dream of the Americans to have safety became a mirage

           
Today there is no safety for any American on the globe

           
The Mujahedeen before although they had less resources

           
Attacked New York and bombed the twin towers in September Eleven attacks

           
That blessed incursion was a fatal blow

           
All praise is due to Allah, the American economy was shaken

           
In such way Americans lived,

           
And By Allahs willing the fear will spread among them again soon

           
Here its America now losing billions still to make sure their country is safe

           
But today, its time for payback,

           
By the grace of Allah, today the Mujahedeen are much more stronger and they have more resource than before

           
Thus they are able to burn United States Again
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With supporters of the Islamic State already having struck in the U.S., and several of its operatives and sympathizers arrested for plotting attacks in America, this threat could not be dismissed.