MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

The “Word of Allah” is certainly speaking loud and clear today, and what it is saying has an awful lot to do with that which Islam loves most: death.

Host: “I’m asking you if ‘Mohammed came in order to kill.’ You verify that?” Caller: “That is 100% correct.” Host: “And to quote the Shahada [There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger] while killing people is correct, too?” Caller: “Yes, we will kill them. We are not ashamed of it.”

And there we have it. Whereas the founder of Christianity came in order to give life and to give it in abundance (John 10:10), the founder of Islam came in order to take lives and to destroy as many of them as possible …

Qur’an: Sura 4:89, “Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers [non-Muslims] wherever you find them.”

Revelation 13:15, “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

• Recommended: Sweden: Group Of Muslim Men Practise Beheading
• Recommended: Sweden: Muslims Attack Police For Daring To Enter Their Area
• Recommended: Sweden: The Muslim Situation Has Gotten So Bad That FIREFIGHTERS Now Need To Wear Bullet-Proof Vests And Face Masks

The Local – “An Islamic extremist who threatened Sweden on Arabic TV has police on alert. One terror expert says the threat should be taken seriously, and that Sweden is in desperate need of a counter-extremism programme.

The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) has received a number of worried calls since a video clip from an Arabic talk-show programme started making the rounds online.

On a recent episode of the popular Arabic talk-show programme Su’al Jari (Bold Questions), a man called in from Sweden and proceeded to threaten the country with extreme violence. (See video below, with Swedish subtitles).

‘Until the day we die, we will engage in war against Sweden and Europe,’ the man said.

Swedish Security Police (Säpo) spokeswoman Sirpa Franzén said that the reactions from Swedes had been strong.

‘Many people are upset since the video and other information is being spread online in connection to the situation in Syria,’ she told newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN).

The caller, identified in the show as Sheikh Ahmed, said he was a member of the jihadist group IS (Islamic State, previously ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and began making references to the Koran, saying that god had given Muslims instructions to kill non-believers.

The talk show is hosted by Rashid Hmami, a Moroccan who converted from Islam to Christianity when he was 19. Hmami proceeded to grill the caller about verses of the Koran and his methods of enforcing his religion.

‘So why do you live in Sweden? Why do you live in a land of unbelievers? You know that it is haram, forbidden for Muslims,” Hmami pressed.

‘The Islam country is God’s country which is the entire world,’ Ahmed responded.” Read more.

“Mohammed came in order to kill.”

True, it is. But Hagel also stated that strong nations “can’t pick and choose which challenges and threats they’re going to deal with.” Until you’re led by a Vacationer-in-Chief named Barack Hussein Obama. Now, evidently, there is one that is certainly trying …

“Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.” – Sophocles

By Jeryl Bier, The Weekly Standard – “Fresh off a trip to India and Australia, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addressed a group of Marines in San Diego, California Tuesday, and may have delivered a line that will show up in Republican campaign ads this election cycle. After updating the troops on some issues in the Pacific region and the Middle East, Hagel took questions from some of the Marines and gave a stark assessment of the global security situation: ‘The world is exploding all over.’ The remark came in response to a question about the Obama administration’s realignment of the military towards the Asia-Pacific theater:

The longer the “Islamic State” continues to grow in size, strength and superiority the likelihood increases that we’ll be seeing branches of al-Qaida joining their rank, especially if al-Qaida affiliates continue losing their own fighters to ISIS. Even though certain tactics may be a little different between the two Sunni groups, the various claws of this Beast all serve the same deadly purpose …

Hadith, Sahih Muslim 1:33a, “The Messenger of Allah [Mohammed] said: ‘I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammad is the messenger of Allah, and they establish [Islamic] prayer …”

Hadith, Muslim 1844, 1851, “Whoever gives his oath of allegiance to a leader and gives him his hand and his heart, let him obey him as much as he can … Whoever dies and did not make an oath of allegiance (to the Muslim leader) has died a death of jaahiliyyah [like an ignorant non-Muslim in pre-Islamic times]” – The “Prophet” Mohammed

Recommended: Worrisome: Islamist Fighters Are Abandoning Al-Qaeda Affiliates To Join ISIS Caliphate

By Mohammed Ghobari and Sami Aboudi, Haaretz – “A top leader of Al-Qaida’s Yemeni branch has hailed the seizure of swathes of Iraqi territory by the Sunni guerrilla group Islamic State, raising the possibility of cooperation between two of the most active Islamist militant networks.

A senior U.S. official last month expressed concern over possible collaboration between bombmakers from Yemen and militants in Syria, where Islamic State has also seized extensive territory in the rebellion against President Bashar Assad.

‘I congratulate all the Mujahideen on all battlefronts and all Muslims on the victories that our brothers in Iraq have achieved against the puppets of the (Iranians),’ Ibrahim al-Rubaish, the main ideologue of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), said in a video posted online.

‘Who does not rejoice in the victory of the Sunni Muslims and the defeat of the gangs of [Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-] Maliki, which had tormented the Sunnis?’ he added.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) changed its name to Islamic State after its fighters swept through northwestern Iraq in June, and declared a caliphate spanning the parts of Iraq and Syria under its control.

The movement originally sprang out of Al-Qaida in Iraq, and shares with Al-Qaida a hatred of Shi’ite Muslims, whom they regard as heretics who have started wars against Sunnis across the Middle East.

‘The Sunnis of Iraq have realised that co-existence in Iraq is not possible … and that fighting the rejectionists (Shi’ites) is a legally binding duty,’ said Rubaish, who is on a list of 85 people wanted by the Saudi government.

‘The same situation is being repeated in Yemen and the Gulf. Will Sunnis learn the lesson of Iraq and take the initiative?’

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity or the date of the 11-minute recording, which appeared to have been posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

Many Sunni Islamists have hailed Islamic State’s victories against a government that they regard as heavily influenced by the Shi’ite power Iran.

But most Al-Qaida groups have refrained from breaking away from the parent to pledge allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has declared himself caliph.” Read more.

Flashback: One Body, Many Parts

• Al-Qaeda Makes ‘Alarming’ Advances In Yemen, U.N. Envoy Warns
• ‘The Place Turned Into Hell’: Suicide Bombing Kills Nearly 100 Soldiers In Yemen
• Yemen: Austrian Hostage Held For Months Forced To Convert To Islam At Gunpoint
• Amputations, Beheadings, Crucifixions: Witness The True Face Of Sharia Law In Yemen
• Yemen: Suicide Bombers Kills 45 Just Weeks After Army Declared Victory Over Islamists
• Yemen: Son of Prominent Cleric Calls Upon Fellow Muslims to ‘Raise the Flag of Islam and Wage War’ Against ‘American Infidels’

In other words, every Muslim has a religious duty to kill Jews. But fret not, whether we’re Hamas or ISIS or Boko Haram or the Taliban or al-Qaeda or any other deadly terrorist organization, we’re all just ordinary peace-loving civilians. And Islamic terrorism against Jews and other non-Muslims still has nothing to do with Islam …

Hadith, Tabari 7:97, “The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, ‘Kill any Jew who falls under your power.’”

Qur’an Sura 8:59a, “The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them …”

• Recommended: PA Official Publicly Calls For Genocide Of Jews As A Religious Islamic Goal
• Recommended: PA Calls On Muslims To Wage War For Allah, ‘The Big Explosion Is Coming’
• Recommended: Senior PA And Fatah Official On Lebanese TV: ‘If We Had A Nuke, We’d Have Used It This Very Morning’

Al-Aqsa TV Host (Hamas), 8/10/2014: “We know that the Palestinian public is a civilian public. Even the [PA] Security Forces – traffic police and civil defense – are all civilian forces. Even the Jihad fighters in the battleground are actually Palestinian civilians fulfilling their religious and national duty. This is why [we cannot make] the distinction and say ‘a civilian car’, ‘a civilian target’ and so on – since we have no regular army and no real military targets …” Listen to video.

Why should we believe anything that Islamist terror organization like Hamas have to say, terrorists whose own “religion” commands them to lie and deceive during (perpetual, unending) conflict against the “House of War” (non-Muslims)? According to these Islamists, Israeli civilians wearing civilian clothing with civilian jobs are not civilians. They’re all “invading soldiers” and are therefore legitimate targets, even tiny babies. And the Muslim fighters who are all firing rockets into Israel? Why, they’re all wearing civilian clothing and are therefore ordinary “civilians” being targeted by Israel. The sea of lies would almost be laughable if it weren’t so deadly. Yet, despite to obviousness of it all, much of the world chooses to believe them anyway. For peaceful purposes …

Hadith, Al Bukhari 4.268, “Allah’s Prophet [Mohammed] said, ‘War is deceit.’”

Recommended: Israel:  At Least 47% Of Gaza Dead Were Combatants

Lebanese Cleric and Head of Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association, Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), 7/20/2014: “My wish for the Jihad fighters, if they hear these words, is that they enter the settlements (i.e., towns in southern Israel) — blood for blood, killing for killing, destruction for destruction and massacre for massacre. Defeat them! Although we massacred their soldiers, we say [about Israeli civilians]: Son of Al-Qassam [Hamas fighter], son of Islam, they are all soldiers, they are all invaders; they are all criminals; have no mercy on any of them. Son of Islam, ignore the whole world that says they are civilians.” Listen to video.

It’s quite telling, isn’t it, when something that is a nightmare for much of the civilized world is a dream come true for much of the Islamic world …

Hadith, Saheeh Muslim 2889, “Verily Allah has shown me the eastern and western part of the earth, and I saw the authority of my Ummah (Islamic nation) dominate all that I saw.”

• Recommended: Obama Loses The Middle East ‘And Soon He Will Have Lost The World’
• Recommended: The Calm Before The Jihadi Storm, ‘Why Are American Politicians Not Blowing The Whistle On Obama’s Suicidal Policies?’

By Joseph Klein, FrontPage Mag – “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (‘ISIS,’ also known variously as ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ or simply the ‘Islamic State’) is metastasizing throughout northern and western Iraq and swaths of Syria. It won’t stop there. Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and other parts of the Middle East are within its sights. Ultimately, its pathological leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi warned, ISIS is after the United States. ‘Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,’ he said last January. More recently, an ISIS spokesperson declared ‘we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.’

President Obama, after months of dithering, finally authorized air strikes against ISIS, which are helping to slow down their advance against the Kurds in northern Iraq and to provide space for urgent humanitarian relief to besieged minority groups under threat of genocide by ISIS jihadists. However, as welcome as this is, the president still views ISIS as a local Iraqi problem to be dealt with by instituting a more inclusive centralized government in Baghdad rather than seeing ISIS as part of a much larger global ideological threat.

ISIS has a swelling army of more than 10,000 fighters, including jihadists and Sunni sympathizers, and advanced weapons seized from storehouses in conquered territories.  ISIS is largely self-financed from such lucrative sources as the sale of oil from seized territories, looting of banks, taxes imposed on subjugated individuals trapped in the conquered territories, ransom paid for abductees, and donations from rich supporters in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

ISIS’s jihadist ideology and methods are barbarous. Its brutality includes summary executions, crucifixions, beheadings, abductions, forced conversions to Islam on penalty of death for disobedience, and the trafficking of girls as sex slaves. But added to their savagery, which knows no bounds, is their command of 21st century Internet technology to widely broadcast their brutal acts as a way of instilling fear in their ‘infidel’ enemies and propagandizing their exploits. An additional worry is the probability that their conquests will enable them to obtain weapons of mass destruction, such as toxic chemicals stored in the conquered territories, as may have already happened. The result, as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters on August 12th, is that ‘the poison of hatred and brutality is spreading.’

Despite the rapid spread of ISIS from its expanding bases in Syria back into Iraq where ISIS had begun its operations, President Obama essentially sat on his hands. Iraqi officials began requesting almost a year ago that the U.S. carry out drone strikes against ISIS while ISIS was still in the process of mobilizing its forces. U.S. intelligence and military experts also warned of ISIS’s rising threat. Drones could have struck ISIS fighters as they were establishing bases in Iraq’s western desert and then moving convoys across the desert – all before ISIS reached any major civilian population areas. Obama refused to take action.” Read more.

Bush Knew What Leaving Iraq Prematurely Would Mean, Obama Ignored It

After all, the “prophet” of Islam said that a Muslim, before they die, must swear allegiance to a Muslim leader. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the proclaimed leader of all Muslims everywhere — hailed as the Prince of the Faithful himself — thus for as long as he lives the multitude of those who pledge allegiance to this Caliph in the name of “Allah” and his “prophet” of doom will only continue to increase, and not just throughout Muslim nations, but Western nations as well. For peaceful purposes …

Hadith, Muslim 1844, 1851, “Whoever gives his oath of allegiance to a leader and gives him his hand and his heart, let him obey him as much as he can … Whoever dies and did not make an oath of allegiance (to the Muslim leader) has died a death of jaahiliyyah [like an ignorant non-Muslim in pre-Islamic times]” – The “Prophet” Mohammed

By Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch – “The video is not in English. The upraised index finger signifies Islamic monotheism, submission to the one and only god.

The caliphate is a might-makes-right proposition. If it can survive, it will win the allegiance of more and more Muslims. And every day that it does survive, it does win over more believers.” Source – Jihad Watch.

Flashback: The Pledge Of Allegiance

• Jordan: Salafi Group Pledges Allegiance To Islamic State
• Nigeria: Boko Haram Voices Support For ISIS Caliphate
• Sudan: Salafi Group Endorses Islamic State’s New Caliphate
• Lebanon: Sunni Jihadists Pledge Allegiance To ISIS Caliphate
• Indonesia: Authorities Fear Support For ISIS Caliphate Spreading
• Indonesia: Jamaah Islamiyah Pledges Allegiance To ISIS Caliphate
• Pakistan: Taliban-Linked Terror Org Pledges Allegiance To ISIS Caliphate
• Philippines: Terrorist Organization Pledges Allegiance To ISIS Caliphate, ‘We Pledge To Obey [The Caliph] … And To Value Him More Than Anyone Else’

In the “Islamic State” Muslim children who love death are being told that they must seek it. Non-Muslim children who love life, however, are being told to convert to Islam, or they can look forward to being killed. Death, it seems, is the only prospect for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike in a pure and glorious Islamic State. Where would Islam be without it? …

Revelation 6:8a, “And I looked, and behold a [χλωρός – “green”] horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him …”

“The entire Earth belongs to Allah. Islam elevates the Muslims and humiliates the infidels… Whoever says that Jesus is God is also an infidel… Anyone who does not believe in Islam is an infidel [that must be slaughtered].” – Islamist Teacher in Syria Teaching Children

Three-Year-Old Child: “Kuffar? I tell them they are going to be butchered.”

Channel 4 News – “…On the one hand the militant group is keen for Sunni Muslims across the world to think of the caliphate as a safe and fun place for children – so that they will move there.

On the other, videos also exist of children being trained with assault weapons and in hand-to-hand combat. Or of children declaring their hatred for America and vowing jihad.

These two conditions for children are not mutually exclusive in the eyes of Islamic State, argues Raffaello Pantucci, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

‘These identities are one and the same,’ he told Channel 4 News. ‘The vision is of a perfect utopian state.

‘This group of guys who carved out the state are there with woman and children. That is what they are about.’

He said examples of this fusion of ideas can also be seen in videos by Uzbek and Uighur militant groups in Waziristan.

In one video of a three-year-old boy, posted to social media sites in January 2014, loyalty to Islamic State is evident. At the start of the video he is seen firing a rifle…

The child, who looks awkwardly off camera and chews on his finger, is asked what his name is. ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ he responds – a reference to the Islamic State leader, presumably his idol.

‘Are you al Nusra, FSA or (Islamic) State?’, the man off camera asks – referring to groups of rebels in Syria. ‘State’, the boy responds, as he looks at his feet.

‘What would you say to Muslims?’ he is asked. ‘I want to tell Muslims to fight’, he responds.

And finally, ‘what would you say to kuffar (non-believers)?’

‘Kuffar? I tell them they are going to be butchered.’

The video is one of many that might shock global audiences.” Read more.

Flashback: Muslim Cleric Praises Boston Bombers As Models For Children, Says Islam Needs Children Who Will Be Slaughterers – “In a recent article published in Issue 13 of Turkestan Al-Islamiyya, the Turkestan Islamic Party’s journal, an Al-Qaeda Abu Dhar Al Burmicleric praised the Boston Marathon bombing’s Tsarnaev brothers… ‘If we neglect the jihadi, ideological and spiritual upbringing of the new youngsters and the new generation, history will not forgive us, and the disgrace of this treason will not be erased from our foreheads. The ummah is in dire need of children [who will be] slaughterers and fighters of the infidels and the devils – children who will be ascetics by night and knights by day, children who will fight the infidels and the leaders of polytheism…'” Read more.

It isn’t clear if this horrible killing was intentional or if the child was randomly struck during the Satanic onslaught, but one thing is certain: These killers couldn’t care less …

Hadith, Sahih Muslim 4457, “The Messenger of Allah … used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless … you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside.”

ENS – “The five-year-old son of a founding member of Baghdad’s Anglican church was cut in half during an attack by the Islamic State1 on the Christian town of Qaraqosh.

In an interview Aug. 8, an emotional Canon Andrew White told ACNS that he christened the boy several years ago, and that the child’s parents had named the lad Andrew after him.

‘I’m almost in tears because I’ve just had somebody in my room whose little child was cut in half,’ he said. ‘I baptized his child in my church in Baghdad. This little boy, they named him after me – he was called Andrew.’

The fact that Andrew’s brother was named George after St George’s Anglican Church in Iraq’s capital demonstrates the strong ties the family had to the church there. The boy’s father had been a founder member of the church back in 1998 when the Canon had first come to Baghdad. White added, ‘This man, before he retired north to join his family was the caretaker of the Anglican church.’

Baghdad is part of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, which is included in the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, a member church of the Anglican Communion.

Though the move north should have proved safer for the Iraqi Christian family, the Islamic State made sure that it became a place of terror. ‘This town of Qaraqosh is a Christian village so they knew everybody there was part of their target group,’ said White. ‘They [the Islamic State] attacked the whole of the town. They bombed it, they shot at people.’

The Islamic State group captured Qaraqosh overnight Aug. 6/7 after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.

ISIS, which has been called a ‘brutal, extremist group’ and which claims to have fighters from across the world, announced the creation of a ‘caliphate’ – an Islamic state – across its claimed territory in Iraq and Syria a month ago. There is a BBC background report here and one from the New York Times here.

The boy’s family, along with many other townspeople, has now fled to Irbil. However, news reports suggest this may be the Islamic State’s next destination.” Read more.

The “Religion of Peace” ought to change its name to something that better reflects its 1,400-year history of mass slaughter. The “Religion of Rest-In-Peace” has a nice ring to it. After all, when you’ve been massacred for the glory of “Allah” you’ve become resolutely silent …

Revelation 13:15, “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

Hadith, Tabari 9:69, “Killing Unbelievers [non-Muslims] is a small matter to us” – The Words of Mohammad, “Prophet” of Islam

• Recommended: The Jerusalem Post: Radical Islam Is, In Truth, The Normative Islam
• Recommended: Islam: The Greatest Murder Machine In History, ‘The Enormity Of The Slaughters … Are So Far Beyond Comprehension That Even Honest Historians Overlook The Scale’

The “Holy” Qur’an: It’s Still Making A Real Difference Throughout The World. Unfortunately.

RT – “Extremists from the Islamic State have killed at least 500 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said. Some of the victims were buried alive.

The killings reported by Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to Reuters add to a long list of atrocities reportedly committed by the radical group in Iraq and neighboring Syria, where it wants to create a caliphate.

‘We have striking evidence obtained from Yazidis fleeing [their ancient home city of] Sinjar and some who escaped death, and also crime scene images that show indisputably that the gangs of the Islamic State have executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar,’ Sudani said.

‘Some of the victims, including women and children were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar,’ he added. Some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he said.

Yazidis are one of many Iraqi minorities persecuted by the Islamic State, which adheres to a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam. The militants offer people living in territories they control to either convert to their faith or face death.

At least 300 Yazidi families in the villages of Koja, Hatimiya, and Qaboshi, which were surrounded by the Islamists, are being forced into converting, witnesses reported on Saturday.

The threat posed by the militant offensive sent an estimated 130,000 of Iraqis, many of them Yazidis, fleeing for their lives. They are seeking refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Kurd militias have been battling with the Islamic State for weeks.

According to UN reports, at least 40,000 Yazidis have been stranded in several locations on Mount Sinjar in north of Iraq, where food and water are scarce.” Read more.

Iraq Descends Into Apocalypse As Islamic State Fanatics Seize Towns And Tell Terrified Yazidi ‘Become Muslims By Noon Today… Or We Kill All Of You’ – “They arrived bristling with heavy weapons and waving black flags from about a dozen Humvees, seized from the Iraqi army and supplied originally by the United States.When the terrified residents looked out of their windows, they saw that Kosho, their traditional walled village in the mountains of northern Iraq, had been surrounded by jihadists. More than 200 bearded militants had besieged the village.Then their leader – a local man from Mosul rather than the foreigners who make up more than a third of the ranks of the group now known as Islamic State – offered them a chance to save their lives.‘He told us that either we become Muslims or they would kill us all,’ said Falah, mayor of the village made up mainly of members of the ancient Yazidi sect. ‘We offered money but they would not accept it.’” Read more.

Flashback: Pure Evil: ISIS Caliphate Releases Video Of Mass Killings, Supporters Online Cheer Massacres As ‘Most Beautiful’ – “In what should be a time of happiness when Muslims mark the end of Ramadan, Islamist militants in Iraq celebrated Eid by releasing a video showing scenes of them carrying out genocide. The slickly produced footage shows prisoners being rounded up and summarily executed, suicide bombers boasting before blowing up buildings and Iraqis being gunned down in drive-by shootings. In one of the most shocking passages, terrified prisoners are piled into the back of trucks, where they hold each other and huddle in fear before driven off to their deaths.” Read more.

This Beast is hungry …

Daniel 7:7, “… a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it …”

By Greg Miller, The Washington Post – “U.S. spy agencies have begun to see groups of fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Africa to join the rival Islamist organization that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, U.S. officials said.

The movements are seen by U.S. ­counterterrorism analysts as a worrisome indication of the expanding appeal of a group known as the Islamic State that has overwhelmed military forces in the region and may now see itself in direct conflict with the United States.

‘Small groups from a number of al-Qaeda affiliates have defected to ISIS,’ as the group is also known, said a U.S. official with access to classified intelligence assessments. ‘And this problem will probably become more acute as ISIS continues to rack up victories.’

The influx has strengthened an organization already regarded as a menacing force in the Middle East, one that has toppled a series of Iraqi cities by launching assaults so quickly and in so many directions that security forces caught in the group’s path have so far been unable to respond with anything but retreat.

U.S. officials attribute the Islamic State’s rapid emergence to factors both psychological and tactical. Its core group of fighters honed their skills against the armies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the United States when it occupied Iraq. The group has used raids and ransoms to stockpile weapons and cash. And its merciless reputation triggered rampant defections among Sunni members of Iraq’s security forces already disenchanted with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Even before its assault on Kurdish territories in northern Iraq this month, analysts said the Islamic State had shown an almost impulsive character in its pursuit of territory and recruits, with little patience for the elaborate and often time-consuming terror plots favored by al-Qaeda.

Counterterrorism analysts at the CIA and other agencies have so far seen no indication that an entire al-Qaeda node or any of its senior leaders are prepared to switch sides. But officials said they have begun watching for signs of such a development.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Islamic State’ Cleric To Muslims: Pledge Allegiance To The Caliphate Leader, ‘The Prince Of The Faithful’ – “Your leader [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] is a descendent of Hussein and the tribe of the prophet. We ought to love the family of the prophet. You have to support him by paying your money, sacrificing your life, and anything you can do. In the name of God the merciful we swear allegiance… To the Prince of the Faithful… And the Caliph of the Muslims… Abu Bakr al-Qurashi [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi].” Read more.

Flashback: ISIS Caliphate Leader To Muslim World: ‘Obey Me’ – “The leader of ISIS, al-Bagdhadi, has given a message to the entire Muslim world: ‘obey me…’ The entire message goes as follows: ‘The mujahedeen have been rewarded victory by God after years of jihad and they were able to achieve their aim and hurried to announce the caliphate and choose the Imam… It is a burden to accept this responsibility to be in charge of you…I am not better than you or more virtuous than you. If you see me on the right path, help me. If you see me on the wrong path, advise me and halt time. And obey me as far as I obey God.’ What happens to those who do not obey? Here is a photo of one of Baghdadi’s recent victims …” Read more.