The dire cost of Biden's weakness.
The Islamic State (ISIS) is back. Five years after Donald Trump entered the Oval Office and quickly brought about the destruction of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, ISIS is resurgent and wealthy. Could this have anything to do with Old Joe Biden’s misrule? Of course.
To be sure, there are other factors at play as well. An Iraqi security official said Friday that “recent assessments … put the group’s reserves at between $25 million and $50 million.” That could be a conservative estimate: the Wall Street Journal reported in September 2020 that ISIS had “assets ranging into the hundreds of millions of dollars across the Middle East and Central Asia,” according to “officials and government records.”
The Iraqi official said that ISIS got its cash from “opportunistic extortion, looting and kidnap for ransom,” but those are not the only sources of the jihad terror group’s income. WSJ added that ISIS “still extorts local populations in areas it controls or has supporters; receives income from businesses it seized during its rule; and collects payments from human trafficking.” It also controls “a growing share of illicit tobacco markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Nor is even that all: “donors in several Middle Eastern countries work on raising funds,” says the WSJ, in an understated reference to wealthy Muslims around the world who believe that ISIS is a worthy Islamic organization and keep it afloat financially with substantial donations.
On Friday, the group announced that it had chosen a new caliph, the brother of the former ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a U.S. raid in 2019. The new top dog is Juma Awad al-Badri, a.k.a. Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, succeeding Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi, who blew himself up to avoid being captured in a U.S. raid in Syria in February. --->READ MORE HERE
A video posted online urges followers of the Islamic State to help form a province of the terror group in the United States called ISIS North America.
The video is dated “new 2022” in the first frame and was posted on a file-sharing site this month. It consists of simple white English-language writing on a black background, instead of being dressed up with images of ISIS battles or adherents as in many videos with higher production value associated with the terror group.
Propaganda including videos, magazines, online memes, instructional leaflets, etc., is produced both through official ISIS channels and — more prolifically since the fall of the declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria — by independent groups and lone actors waging what they call “media jihad.” Regardless of the production source, this ISIS-supporting propaganda is intended to recruit, threaten, and incite, with a particular emphasis on urging followers to use accessible weapons and attack soft targets on their home turf.
“To those who want to try,” it begins with an ISIS flag as a nasheed plays. “To my brothers following in the path of the Khilafa in America I urge you to come join our group.”
“This new group will operate in the United States to surprise the murtad in their own lands,” the video continues. The wording suggests that the group intends to target Muslims seen as turning their back on ISIS’ interpretation of Islam — how the terror group defines apostasy — instead of the general population, referred to as kuffar or disbelievers. --->READ MORE HERE
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