ISIS is reportedly delighted over the violent protests that have erupted all across the United States post the death of George Floyd calling the situation as “God’s punishment”.
For about two weeks now, the United States has been gripped by demonstrations which the Islamic State and Indonesian militants are delighting over and describing it as “God’s punishment” for a country they see as an enemy, a former militant told SMP.
Terror groups on US Protests
In the latest issue of ISIS’s weekly Arabic-language magazine, Al Naba, the US protests were called a “natural disaster” while also mentioning that that “the US thinks it is invincible but the coronavirus has hit them the hardest. God serves the USA with punishment.”
A UK based media house reports that “Jubilant ISIS thugs are hailing the bloody George Floyd riots as ‘payback for the treatment of Muslims’. They have been rejoicing at the outbreaks of violence across the US on the anonymous chat app Telegram.”
It is also reported that members of the Indonesian affiliate of ISIS called the Jemaah Ansharut Daulah shared video content from the US protests on Facebook with captions that stated “Good job bro” and “Good news. The ‘Trumpet’ family flees”
A former militant, Yudi Zulfahri, now the director of a deradicalisation organisation called Establish Peace tells media that“Any incidents that bring about losses for America will make them happy.”
A former senior figure in al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asian network, Sofyan Tsauri, who also spent five years in jail for helping to arm terror groups has reportedly said that “[The militants] are very pleased … the chaos and losses in the US make them very happy.”
“The US is their enemy and they see their enemy as being destroyed. Secondly, discrimination is not part of the teachings of Islam,” continued the former militant.
An attack awaiting the US?
Many defence experts argue that terror groups may strike the US at present times when the US is battling against the coronavirus pandemic that has infected over one million people and has killed over a hundred thousand Americans.
Additionally, thousands of people taking to the streets calling for justice, shouting “Black lives matter” while being angered and failed by their chosen President.
However, according to Nico Prucha, an ISIS expert, the terror group sees the events as weakening the US, but it will not take advantage of the chaos to strike the country. Prucha believes the US is not a core target of the ISIS which has mostly been operating in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the Sahel, Yemen, West Africa and Southeast Asia.
“That is the core of its operations. Any attack in the US, China, Russia and Europe is a bonus and a big win,” said Prucha, but most commentators focus on these areas and “completely miss the point of ISIS targeting the core areas”.
Zachary Abuza, a professor at Washington DC-based National War College rather believes that “domestic, not foreign terrorism, is the most immediate threat to the US.” Abuza warns that “there is a far right-wing movement that has been on the margins of many of the protests whose goal is to incite the next Civil War. There have already been arrests of this nature.”
On May 25, the US witnessed the death of a 46-year-old African-American man after a former Minneapolis Police Officer held his knee on the man’s neck for nearly nine minutes while arresting him.
The 44-year-old white police officer Derek Chauvin now faces a charge of murder, and three other officers on the scene were charged with aiding and abetting the killing. The incident which was filmed got viral that has led to the mass scale demonstrations that have taken a violent turn, with reports of looting and arson making headlines.
US President, Donald Trump, in response has threatened to deploy military across the whole country to browbeat the protesters and put an end to the demonstrations that have caused the arrest of over 10,000 protesters.
