ISIS Threat Depicts Exploding Capitol to Coincide with Start of 116th Congress

An ISIS-allied media group continued threats against the U.S. Capitol in a violent image released as new lawmakers were sworn into office.

In the image, a white jihadist wearing military gear and a black ski mask stands outside the front of the Capitol as an explosion detonates in the dome. Both the House and Senate ends are depicted in flames.

“And fight them until there is no fitnah,” states the text on the image.

Fitnah means a test or trial. Islamic scholars have clarified the term as separating the bad from the good and “burning them with fire” and a word “often used to describe tests in which something disliked is eliminated”: “Fitnah means testing, fitnah means trial, fitnah means wealth, fitnah means children, fitnah means kufr, fitnah means differences of opinion among people, fitnah means burning with fire.”

The same group behind the threat also this month released an image of a jihadist attacking President Trump as he’s inside a vehicle, with the directive “Fight them for they are polytheists.” Another poster circulated online depicted a gray-sweatshirt-wearing jihadist wielding a long knife, telling lone jihadists to wage jihad where they are in “the land of disbelief.”

“The ways to carry out jihad where you live have not been shut down. You have been preceded by your brothers, the lone wolves,” said the message. “They killed the enemies of Allah, dispersed by them and disturb their lives, so it is your turn now to join the caravan and avenge your religion and your honor.”

The Capitol threat follows others made online in recent weeks, including a month ago in Shabab al-Khilafah, or The Youth of the Caliphate, a new magazine geared toward young recruits calling on jihadists to wage vehicle attacks outside of the U.S. Capitol.

In a collection of threat posters is one depicting a hand on a steering wheel — the watch reads 5:10 — heading toward the U.S. Capitol. “Harvest time has come in your homes,” the headline declared. “Run them over with a truck or a car. Coming at you.”

It included the “Just Terror” slogan that ISIS uses for lone jihad.

“When we see all of the world media united in their war against the Islamic State, whether by sharing fake news or by trying to dehumanize the mujahideen, we need to understand that this war is not only against the Islamic State but it is against the fundamentals of Islam all together just like their tyrants have declared multiple times,” read text published under the image. “And so this battle is between those worldwide media organizations and every single Muslim from any country. Since the people of falsehood have united against Muslims it’s only logical that we, the people of this ummah [Muslim community], unite against this satanic coalition… the Islamic State has never had any problems dealing with non-Arabic languages and cultures and this is manifested in its various media foundations and that a lot of its wilayah [provinces] are in non-Arab land. The Islamic State project has never been a national one but a globalist one that aims to unite all of this ummah with all of its colors and races under one banner and one law.”