The Islamic State released a new video threatening to kill U.S. soldiers if President Barack Obama decides to deploy troops to Iraq, hours after the most senior American military official raised the possibility of sending U.S. combat troops if the current strategy of airstrikes fails, the Associated Press reported.
Entitled "Flames of War," the 52-second video, released late Tuesday night by the group's media wing, the Al Hayat Media Center, features slow motion explosions and fighting conducted by militant Islamists while U.S. soldiers are spotted picking up their wounded and loading them into military vehicles, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
The clip flashes images of President George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner followed by a clip of Obama vowing that "American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq."
Made in the style of a Hollywood trailer, the video then ends with a text overlay that reads "Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun," followed by "coming soon."
While ISIS offered no explanation for the release, the video's timing suggested it was a response to Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in testimony Tuesday that if the current Iraq strategy doesn't prevail, he may recommend the use of ground troops. Obama had previously ruled out any "boots on the ground."
"To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president," Dempsey declared in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Meanwhile, the video is the latest example of the group's strategy to fundraise and recruit potential extremists by operating a sophisticated propaganda machine with slick production techniques, using social media to broadcast a stream of battles, bombings and beheadings to a global audience, Breitbart reported.
Laith Alkhouri, a senior analyst at the New York based security consulting firm Flashpoint Global partners, told the New York Times that the video indicates that IS "appears to be more relentless than ever, not only expanding in territory but also raising the bar in its confrontation with the world's top superpower."
"In some ways, it's attempting to prove to jihadists that while Al Qaeda is missing in action, we are rising to the occasion," Alkhouri said. "It demonstrates the true intention of the group, to operate on an international level."
In the past month, IS has released three videos showing the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker, as well as recruitment clips and videos glorifying IS martyrs, the Times reported.
