Islamic States call to kill westerners has terrorism experts divided | World news | theguardian.com

One of the better commentators putting the latest ISIS/ISIL threats into context:

Rodger Shanahan, non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a former army officer, told Guardian Australia the video was “not earth shattering”, as Al-Adnani has been saying this sort of thing for years, but the specific mention of Australia had caught the media’s eye.

“My view is that if you give these people oxygen it encourages them to do it more often, that’s the whole point,” said Shanahan.

“It’s a pretty good debate to have: if this had not been widely reported, would it really have amounted to anything other than security agencies noting Australia being mentioned specifically by the IS spokesperson?”

“But if you go back over the last couple of speeches there are general references to the west, the Europeans, the Christians. There’s no change of direction at all. It’s just a continuation of what he’s put out there, but nobody has paid particular attention to it in the past.”

Shanahan said that while security agencies have to take it seriously, anyone who might pay attention to the message in the video is already thinking that way.

“The utility of it in terms of attracting more recruits, I don’t think it’s of utility at all. In terms of interest because it mentions us and Canada and France, yes, it’s interesting, but it’s not an earth shattering thing.”

Islamic States call to kill westerners has terrorism experts divided | World news | theguardian.com.