The English Voice of the Islamic State Comes Out of the Shadows

An article in The New York Times describes the case of Mohammed Khalifa, a 35-year-old Canadian citizen who traveled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State, which he abbeted by providing narration in English in many of its propaganda videos. Those videos included one of the Islamic State’s best-known. Referred to as “Flames of War,” the video shows Syrian soldiers digging their own graves and then being shot in the head. Speaking fluent English with a North American accent, Khalifa narrated countless other videos and radio broadcasts by the Islamic State, serving as the terrorist group’s faceless evangelist to Americans and other English speakers seeking to learn about its toxic ideology. Terrorism experts say it is hard to overstate the role his effortless narration played in bringing the terrorist group’s propaganda to English speakers and luring some of them to its cause. Khalifa was himself motivated to join the Islamic State by English-language versions of online terrorsist group propaganda, including that authored by infamous al Qa’ida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki. Khalifa was captured by a U.S.-backed militia last month and is now among hundreds of other Islamic State fighters from approximately 50 countries who are locked in prisons in northern Syria. Read the article at the New York Times.