Islamic State Releases Video Threatening U.S. Troops, White House

Sarah Adams Wednesday, September 17, 2014

An abandoned Iraqi security forces vehicle is pictured on a road in Tikrit, which was overran by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), June 11, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)

The Islamic State has released another video, this time warning the United States that its militants will be waiting if the United States decides to deploy soldiers into Iraq to fight the terrorist organization.

The brief video, entitled "Flames of War," shows an array of war images that include masked gunmen about to shoot hostages in the head, wounded U.S. soldiers and destroyed military tanks. The video also shows footage of the White House and includes the tagline: "fighting has just begun."

The video also shows a clip of a recent speech from Obama in which the president says: "American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq."

Media outlets suggest that the recent 52-second video was released in response to comments made by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently said during a Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. ground troops could be deployed to Iraq to destroy the Islamic State. Dempsey's comments came shortly after Obama vowed that no U.S. troops would be put on the ground to fight the terrorist organization.

The recent video was released by the Islamic State's English propaganda arm al-Hayat Media Centre. According to The Guardian, although the short film appears to have been put together expertly, an source in the film industry told the media outlet that such a video can be put together simply, and does not require a large budget or expertise.

"These sort of effects are relatively simple to do nowadays. There are iPhone apps that add explosions and look quite real," Luke Jacobs, an executive producer in TV commercials at Friend Productions, told The Guardian.

"The video is slickly done and they have spent some time on it, but it's not something that would require access to a big post-production house. I'd say it's more likely been done by a guy with a laptop. It looks like there might be someone on team Isis who used to work at a TV network or knows his way around visual effects software, a compositor like Nuke or Adobe After Effects," Jacobs added.