ISIS video taunts ‘Crusader’ Trump

ISIS has released a new propaganda video featuring U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump in what appears to be the first time in the group’s ‘official’ propaganda videos. Set in Kirkuk, Iraq, the video originates from the Islamic State’s main propaganda arm, as opposed to recent propaganda put out by accounts labeled by experts as ‘ISIS-linked,’ ‘pro-ISIS’ or ‘ISIS-inspired.’ The video, entitled “Kirkuk: The punishment for traitors,” opens with a montage of several media outlets followed by an image of Donald Trump, as a voice reads, “The Crusaders of the West.” It features a series of ‘confessions’ from several prisoners who are anti-ISIS collaborators, in which after confessing, they are either shot to death or slaughtered by knife. There has been much debate over the appearance of U.S. presidential candidates in ISIS videos, including a suggestion by Hillary Clinton back in 2015 that Donald Trump had been featured in an ‘official’ ISIS video. “He [Donald Trump] is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists,” Clinton stated at the third Democratic presidential debate in December 2015. That claim was later retracted by the Clinton campaign. Trump has been featured in several terrorist propaganda videos, although experts have sought to distinguish between the Amaq ‘news agency’ and Nashir News outlets, meaning core ISIS and linked groups such as Al-Battar and Furat Media. In early 2016 Trump also appeared in a video released by an Al Qaeda-linked terror group Al Shabaab.