An ISIS supporter waves a flag in Raqqa, Syria
ISIS is out with a new edition of its propaganda magazine, Dabiq. Their lead story is the attack in San Bernardino, on December 2. In the magazine, ISIS is claiming responsibility for the bloodshed and encouraging its supporters to copy it.
The story highlights the role of the female attacker, Tashfeen Malik, the wife of Syed Rizwan Farook. Both were shot dead in a gunbattle with police, but only after they had killed 14 people.
“ISIS goes on to quote scripture,” says Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times, “which states that it’s not obligatory for women to become combatants, unlike men. But the fact that she chose to be involved — and the couple as we know abandoned their toddler daughter in order to carry out this attack and martyr themselves — the fact that she was involved, in their eyes, is something that should shame Muslim men. And they use it as a way to goad Muslim men in the West and say, look, if she can do it, you can do it too.”
Callimachi says the San Bernardino attack is the most successful of the lone wolf attacks that they’ve been trying to incite for the past year. “We know that the spokesman of ISIS made a statement where he very clearly said that anyone who is a follower of the Islamic State can take part in the project. Not just by joining them physically and making a pilgrimage to their territory, but by carrying out attacks against the infidels everywhere they are, with whatever means they have. And he gives them examples. He says, pick up a gun and shoot them. Pick up a knife and stab them. Take a car and ram it into them. Use any tool that you have to cause harm and to shed the blood of the ‘kufr,’ the infidels.”
The relative success of the San Bernardino attack, in terms of body count, and its impact on American morale and the political scene, says Callimachi, has led them to solidify their responsibility for it and to claim it as theirs.
“People make a mistake in discounting the lone wolf attacks and saying, 'Oh, it wasn’t ordered by ISIS-central. Actually it was. ISIS-central has given very clear instructions to its sympathizers, and their sympathizers are online, where they said, you do not need to be in touch with us. You just need to take this as a prerogative yourself and use whatever tools you have to do this and cause harm.”
The goal of these small attacks, says Callimachi, is not necessarily a high body count, but to erode public confidence.
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