Two days after releasing an explosion-ridden 2-minute trailer, the Islamic State, released the full-length propaganda video titled "Flames of War" on Friday. (The militant group is also known as ISIS or ISIL.)
The 55-minute video is narrated in English by someone with what sounds like a North American accent and shows a series of scenes from ISIS battles in Syria and Iraq, as well as recordings of speeches by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The video looks to be mostly a propaganda and recruitment tool, with messages declaring that "the fighting has just began."
The Islamic State (#IS/#ISIL) has now released the full length video of "Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun," declaring war on the US.— Flashpoint Partners (@FlashpointIntel) September 19, 2014
As noted by Eliot Higgins, an expert in Middle East conflicts who blogs under the name Brown Moses, the video ends showing an ISIS executioner that has an American-sounding accent. Higgins, however, notes that most of the video is not particularly revealing. In the tweet below, he calls it masturbatory.
Mostly though it's flashy Islamic State onanism.— Brown Moses (@Brown_Moses) September 19, 2014
Pieter Van Ostayen, a researcher who's been tracking ISIS fighters and supporters online, tweeted that the video "is highly professionally made (again)," and follows the same pattern of previous ISIS videos, while skipping "most of [the] savagery."
The video was posted to YouTube by the ISIS media arm, the Al Hayat Media Center, and distributed widely on Twitter by what appear to be ISIS sympathizers. Mashable is not linking to the video.
