ISIS Threatens Washington, D.C. With Paris-Style Attacks In New Video
ISIS has threatened Washington, D.C., as well as other European cities, in a new video released Monday, MSN is reporting.
In the six-minute video, part of which is posted above, an ISIS terrorist identified only as Al Ghareeb (“The Algerian”) appears in fatigues, flanked on either side by other ISIS fighters holding machine guns. Speaking in Arabic, the man references Friday’s Paris attacks and threatens more of the same in Washington, D.C., as well as other nations participating in the coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
“We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day God willing, like France’s, and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington.”
Besides threatening Washington, the terrorist also threatens other European cities.
“I say to the European countries that we are coming, coming with booby traps and explosives, coming with explosive belts and (gun) silencers and you will be unable to stop us because today we are much stronger than before.”
Later in the video, another ISIS fighter, identified as Al Karrar (“The Iraqi”), warns French President Francois Hollande that there will be no more “negotiations.”
“We have decided to negotiate with you in the trenches and not in the hotels.”
The full video, which will not be posted on The Inquisitr, was originally posted on a website used by ISIS. It begins with news footage of the Paris attacks and claims to have been made in Salahuddine, an ISIS-controlled province north of Baghdad.
As of this writing, the authenticity of the video has not been confirmed.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that DHS is aware of the ISIS threat, but that the agency has not received any “credible information” about a specific attack in Washington.
“While we take all threats seriously, we do not have specific credible information of an attack on the U.S. homeland,”
Speaking in Washington on Monday, CIA Director John Brennan stated his belief that last week’s attacks in Paris, which killed over 120 people and injured at least 300 others, were likely not “one-off” attacks, according to Yahoo News. Brennan says he believes more ISIS attacks against Western targets are “in the pipeline.”
“This was not something done in a matter of days. This is something that was carefully and deliberately planned over the course of several months in terms of whether they had the operatives, the weapons, explosives, suicide belts. I would anticipate that this is not the only operation ISIL has in the pipeline.”
[NOTE: “ISIL” is another acronym used by some agencies to describe ISIS.]
Also, without naming any names, Brennan criticized recent “unauthorized disclosures” about the nature of U.S. and European surveillance efforts, stating that those revelations taught ISIS “what they need to do in order to keep their activities concealed from the authorities.” He also claimed that “handwringing” about the size and scope of Western governments’ surveillance programs hampered those governments’ efforts, including France’s, to monitor and track potential terrorists.
WATCH: @CIA Director John Brennan remarks on Global Security @CSIS https://t.co/ZURijw8oym pic.twitter.com/IyultuxAQm
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 16, 2015
Back in Washington, there are no “visible signs,” says WXYZ (Detroit), that security is any tighter in the city. However, a U.S. Capitol Police spokesperson did confirm that patrols around the Capitol Building have been beefed up out of “an abundance of caution.”
Do you believe ISIS intends to carry out terrorist attacks in Washington or elsewhere in the United States? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
