ISIS Arrests "Extremists" for Plotting Against It

In a terrible case of irony, AFP has reported that ISIS arrested "extremists" accused of plotting against the group in the areas in Iraq and Syria under its control. The terrorist group claimed the confessions of four men captured were evident when they said they had plotted against the group because they didn't view "all Iraqis and Syrians as infidels."

In a video that the terrorist group allegedly posted on jihadi websites, the international news agency detailed a male voice saying that ISIS has:

[C]aptured an extremist religious cell planning to take up arms against the Caliphate.

The Caliphate refers to the Islamic religious and political leadership centered around a Caliph, a spiritual Islamic leader considered the successor of Prophet Muhammad.

The four detainees are reported to speak in Azerbaijani Turkish as they accuse ISIS' leader of being “an infidel as he takes money from infidels.” The video did not detail the time or place the men were arrested, but AFP describe it as carrying the initials of the Raqqa province in northern Syria, an ISIS stronghold in the country mired in a debilitating civil war.

The video also did not reveal the fate of the men, although it is assumed that the jihadist group will kill them. Last week, ISIS executed 100 foreign fighters for attempting to flee from the group. Many foreigners who joined the terrorist group have become disenchanted with the realities of the Islamist cause and want to leave.

In June, during its swift and alarming advance that stunned the international community, ISIS proclaimed Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, born Ibrahim ibn Awwad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai, the Caliph of all Muslims and the Prince of the Believers. Since their rise, ISIS has yet to cease stunning the world with the heinous acts it commits, among which include near-genocide of the historically-persecuted Yazidi minority in Iraq and the beheadings of foreign journalists and Syrian soldiers.

In light of all the horrible crimes the group has, and continues to, perpetrate, that they allege the four detained men are "extremists" seems like twisted satire on their part. If anything, the banner under which one can classify an "extremist" has been pretty much filled to the brim by ISIS. The Taliban and Al Qaeda, two other notoriously violent terrorist groups, though terrifying in their own right — the Taliban recently carried out a horrifying attack on a Pakistani school, killing 145 people, the majority of them children — have been said to not even come close to ISIS' brutality.

Jürgen Todenhöfer, the only journalist to whom ISIS granted access, recently returned from his ISIS soujourn with deeply troubling details of his time with the group's militants. Todenhöfer told CNN in an interview:

I think the Islamic State is a lot more dangerous than Western leaders realize. They believe in what they are fighting for and are preparing the largest religious cleansing campaign the world has ever seen.

Image: Getty Images (2)