Islamic State Video: ‘Putin, We Will Come to Russia and Kill You’

In a new video from the Islamic State, a masked militant encouraged his followers to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia.

“Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes… oh Brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them,” Reuters reports the militant saying.

Unusually for an ISIS video, the jihadi spokesman is driving a car through the desert while he yells his narration into the camera and spends a good deal of time literally wagging his finger as he exhorts his audience.

https://youtu.be/IUdC2YdiP9Q

The video also shows ISIS fighters attacking armored vehicles and scavenging weapons, purportedly from “rejectionist military” near Akashat — a town in Iraq where the Islamic State ambushed a Syrian convoy in 2013.

According to the UK Daily Mail, the Islamic State has not yet taken formal responsibility for the video, but it has been disseminated through an ISIS-linked account on the secure messaging platform Telegram. Heavy.com adds that this account is named after Wilayat al-Furat, a province in northern Iraq that borders Syria.

Like many other media outlets, Russia’s RT.com speculates that the prospect of increased Russian activity against ISIS in Syria, coordinated with the United States, is the reason for the videotaped threat.

RT.com additionally suggests fear of what thousands of ISIS recruits from Russian states might do, upon returning home from Syria, motivated Moscow to conduct airstrikes against militants in Syria.

“We certainly cannot allow them to use the experience they are getting in Syria on home soil,” Russian President Vladimir Putin is quoted as saying.