Islamic State urges attacks and taunts US

The Islamic State has urged followers to attack citizens of the US, France, and other countries which have joined a coalition to destroy the ultra-radical group.

Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani also taunted US President Barack Obama and other Western “crusaders” in a statement carried by the SITE monitoring website, saying their forces faced inevitable defeat at the insurgents’ hands.

The US is building an international coalition to combat the extremist Sunni Muslim force, which has seized large expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate erasing borders in the heart of the Middle East.

Adnani said the intervention by the US-led coalition would be the “final campaign of the crusaders”, according to SITE’s English transcript of an audio recording in Arabic.

“It will be broken and defeated, just as all your previous campaigns were broken and defeated,” said Adnani, urging followers to attack US, French, Canadian, Australian, and other nationals.

Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said the group’s call showed once again, “if it needed to be shown, the barbarity of these terrorists, and shows why we must fight them relentlessly...”

In a statement, he added, using an Arabic acronym for the militants: “We must also eliminate the risk that Daesh represents to our security.”

US and French warplanes have struck Islamic State targets in Iraq, and the US said other countries had indicated a willingness to join it if it goes ahead with airstrikes against the group in Syria, too.

The US has committed $500m (€390m) to arm and train Syrian rebels and to send 1,600 US military advisers to Iraq to help fight Islamic State, while stressing the US personnel would not engage in combat.

Adnani mocked Western leaders over their deepening military engagement in the region and said Obama was repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, George W Bush. “If you fight it (Islamic State), it becomes stronger and tougher. If you leave it alone, it grows and expands. If Obama has promised you with defeating the Islamic State, then Bush has also lied before him,” Adnani said.

Addressing Obama directly, Adnani added: “Oh mule of the Jews, you claimed today that America would not be drawn into a war on the ground. No, it will be drawn and dragged... to its death, grave and destruction.”

US military officials say the reality of a protracted campaign in Iraq and possibly Syria may require greater use of troops.