Mar 4, 2015

Since first seizing Iraqi territory in June 2014, the Islamic State (IS) has carefully selected targets based on a strategic vision of the regional conflict and global repercussions, often broadcasting its intentions in videos released online. Chief among the messages related to its vision and battlefield goals is a call for direct confrontation with the United States on the territory of Muslim countries, directly challenging President Barack Obama and emphasizing points that draw attention to the American presence in Iraq.

In one of its first media productions after taking control of Mosul, IS announced its goal of creating a new Middle East by wiping away the recognized borders of the current nation-states. It did so by proclaiming the annulment of the Sykes-Picot agreement and eliminating the boundary between Iraq and Syria. It also declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate to which all Muslims supposedly belonged.

Subsequently, the IS member who was videotaped beheading captured foreigners addressed Obama directly in the recorded killings, even before the United States assembled an international coalition to conduct military operations against the group, launching its first strikes Sept. 19, 2014. Before killing a Kurdish captive in late January this year, the executioner announced that IS would slaughter Obama in the White House and turn the United States into a “Muslim province.”

IS has insisted on framing the current conflict as a struggle between Islam and the West, invoking the word “crusaders” to refer to Westerners. In a video posted Feb. 15 showing the mass beheadings of kidnapped Egyptian Copts, the narrator links the killing of the Christians to the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of US commandos and vows to mix their blood with the sea in which they disposed of bin Laden's body.

On Feb. 12, IS fighters had attacked Ain al-Asad, a base west of Ramadi in Anbar province. It is Iraq’s largest military base and the site at which more than 300 US Marines are training Iraqi military and security forces for the fight against IS. The attack was the first IS offensive after a lull of two months. The offensive began after Obama's request to Congress the preceding day to authorize an expansion of the fight against IS by sending “limited” ground troops to Iraq. Perhaps the attack was in part aimed at inflaming US public opinion and prompting Congress to vote in favor of the proposal, thus opening the door to possible direct confrontation with broader US participation in the fighting.