ISIS supporters are urging fellow adherents to recommit and re-pledge their loyalty to self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a broad social media campaign.
One posting of the “renewal of the Bay’ah” oath was signed by “your brothers in Halummu,” an ISIS Telegram channel and the name of an oft-resurrected ISIS blog that is removed from the internet soon after it goes up.
The message circulating in Arabic and English said the pledge to “the Khalifah of the Muslims” should be renewed “to frustrate the kuffar [disbelievers] and terrorize them.”
ISIS members pledge “to listen and obey” to al-Baghdadi, “in times of delight and dislike, and in times of hardship and ease, and to do so selflessly, and to not dispute the matter of those in authority except if we see blatant kufr concerning which we have proof from Allah.”
“We recommend to the soldiers and supporters of the Islamic State that which [late al-Qaeda in Iraq leader] Shaykh Mujahid Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had advised: Oh soldiers of the Islamic State! Do not be hurt by harm of the stirrers of fitnah [trials] nor retreats of the defeated. Allah is your supporter. Pray unto Allah for firmness,” the message added.
ISIS supporters have been celebrating the March 23 terror attacks in Carcassonne and Trèbes, France, calling upon other lone jihadists to follow in the terrorist’s footsteps. ISIS promoted the France terror spree in last week’s issue of their newsletter by rubbing in the fact that the attacker was already on a terror watchlist, and also highlighted the work of a British man who tried to raise an army of child jihadists in the UK.
Redouane Lakdim, a 28-year-old French-Moroccan, first carjacked a vehicle in Carcassonne, shooting the passenger to death. After driving to Trèbes, Lakdim stormed a Super U grocery store, killing two civilians and a police officer, Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, who had swapped himself for a hostage. Lakdim, who was armed with a gun, hunting knife and three explosive devices, was killed by police when they eventually raided the market.
ISIS called Lakdim “an Islamic State soldier” who answered “calls to target the crusader alliance states, which fight the caliphate.”
“This operation comes despite the claim of the Crusaders that the brother… was monitored by her organs [and] despite all the strict security measures,” the article added.
ISIS called jihadist attacks in “countries of the cross” a “growing tide,” and predicted western nations “will suffer” in both “human and economic losses” due to attacks.
The pro-ISIS al-Abd al-Faqir Media, which has issued recent videos depicting the invasion of Washington and a terrorist invasion of Paris, released on Easter an image of the Crucifixion with the center cross on fire and an explosive device resting nearby. “So wait, we too will wait with you,” said the text accompanying the image.
Al-Abd al-Faqir Media last month released a video showing, as described at the beginning, “an imaginary chat in the future between an old immigrant to the land of the caliphate where he talks to his friend ‘John’ who’s a new convert to Islam after Allah has fulfilled his promise and the caliphate reached east and west … in the near future inshallah.”
The video included extensive real-life footage from previous ISIS propaganda films of the caliphate that no longer exists, including in Raqqa, as a nasheed sings that the terror group was “back to glory when our armies came back… with the sword, they rule ever kuffar [disbeliever].”
“Our lions have infiltrated… that time has come,” the song added.
A U.S. commander working with Iraqi forces recently said of Baghdadi, who has eluded capture, that “we don’t need to go directly after him.”
“All we need to do is systematically pick off his knights, and his rooks and bishops. His mid-level and senior commanders, until none of them are left to protect him,” said Col. Seth Folsom, commander of Task Force Lion. “And then eventually we’ll bring him to justice.”
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