Islamic State-linked jihadis continued Monday to promote an essay released over the weekend calling for Election Day attacks and the “slaughter” of U.S. voters.
Published Saturday by the terror group’s “Al Hayat media center,” a seven-page essay entitled “The Murtadd Vote” or apostate vote, was shared across numerous Islamic State affiliated channels including the group’s “Khilafah News” channels, and social media accounts.
Despite the removal of many of the channels and links by social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and even the open-access Internet Archive, jihadis were back in full force Monday in a virtual “Get Out The Vote” jihadi-style drive aimed at stirring supporters to carry out so-called ‘lone-wolf’ attacks as Americans head to the voting booths Tuesday.
The Foreign Desk has seen at least two open-invite “Khilfah News” channels on the encrypted Telegram Messenger- the social media application of choice for ISIS jihadis- disseminating the group’s propaganda. Typically these channels are invite-only and access keys to the secret rooms time out within a short time after publication, making it harder for authorities to gain access and shut down these channels.
In “The Murtadd Vote,” would-be attackers are advised to target the American voter with an argument suggesting that since “voters are directly involved in the decision making process by choosing delegates to represent them and their whims executively, judicially, and legislatively, the blood of Crusader voters is even more deserving of being spilled than the blood of Crusader combatants.”
There’s no distinction between Republican or Democrat voters, nor is there any exception for women and even Muslim voters, and the essay concludes with a chilling sentence stating, “"May Allah make this year’s U.S. presidential election a dreadful calamity like no other to have struck America throughout its pathetic history."
