Free The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS by Robert Spencer Page A

have now joined it in Iraq and Syria, with five thousand joining its Libyan wing? 12
    The answer is not complicated, despite intense and ongoing efforts to complicate it.
     
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    OSTRICH ALERT

    “It makes no sense to turn the ISIS threat into a fight about Islam.”
    —Forbes, February 26, 2015 13
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    The Islamic State’s theology is straightforward. While apologists for Islam in the West insist that the Qur’an’s words must not be taken at face valueand maintain that only a tiny minority of Muslims do take them literally, the Qur’anic justifications for the Islamic State’s actions are based on the plain words of the text. And the Islamic State’s appeal to tens of thousands of Muslims from all over the world testifies to the resonance of their literal reading of Islam’s holy book.
    What Is It about ISIS and Lopping Off Heads?
    It has been a seemingly endless parade, beginning just weeks after ISIS declared its new caliphate: public beheadings, lovingly filmed and included in slick propaganda videos appealing to Muslims around the world to join the Islamic State.
    These very public beheadings have horrified the world; in large part, they were responsible for the wave of public concern about ISIS in America that led to the U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State. Many have taken them as a sign that for all its vaunted media savvy, the Islamic State will ultimately be undone by its own savagery, as the world will ultimately have had enough of this horror and will move to destroy ISIS once and for all.
    Why, then, does the Islamic State behead anyone at all, much less film the beheadings and post them on social media? Because from their standpoint, beheadings are a recruitment tool—one that is rooted in the Qur’an. The Muslim holy book says straightforwardly, “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (47:4).
    The Islamic State knows that young Muslims who are aware of that verse will not recoil in horror and disgust from their beheading videos, but rather realize that the Islamic State is acting in fidelity with the Qur’an. Thus the beheadings will bolster the Islamic State’s claim to constitute the new caliphate.
    The beheading videos also “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah”—another Qur’anic imperative (8:60). Thus, as far as the jihadis of the Islamic State are concerned, the world’s revulsion and disgust at their beheading videos are only confirmation that they’re on the right track.
    Victims of Islamic State Beheadings: A Partial List
SYRIAN SOLDIERS: On July 25, 2014, Islamic State supporters posted to social media photos of soldiers of the Assad regime beheaded in Raqqa—one ISIS supporter said seventy-five soldiers had been beheaded. 14
JAMES FOLEY: The Islamic State posted video of the beheading of American journalist Foley on August 20, 2014. 15
ALI AL-SAYYED: Eight days later, on August 28, 2014, the Islamic State posted photos of the beheading of Lebanese Army Sergeant al-Sayyed on social media. 16
STEVEN SOTLOFF: The beheading video of Israeli-American journalist Sotloff was published September 2, 2014. 17
DAVID HAINES: British humanitarian aid worker Haines’s beheading video was published on September 13, 2014. 18
15 RELATIVES OF POLICE OFFICERS IN AFGHANISTAN: On September 20, 2014, masked men calling themselves soldiers of the Islamic State beheaded fifteen family members of Afghan police officers. 19
HERVÉ GOURDEL: A French mountaineering guide, Gourdel was kidnapped in Algeria. The Algerian Islamic State affiliate Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate) released a video showing his beheading, “A Message of Blood for the French Government,” on September 24, 2014. 20
ALAN HENNING: The Islamic State released the beheading video of British humanitarian aid worker Henning on October 3, 2014. 21
PETER KASSIG: American humanitarian aid worker Kassig converted to Islam while in captivity, taking the name Abdul-Rahman. His