In a joyful press release following the Paris massacre that left 130 dead, ISIS celebrated its victory over the city it called, “The lead carrier of the cross.” The group declared, “Allah granted victory upon their hands and cast terror into the hearts of the crusaders in their very own homeland.” Read the article here.
One thing that all radical Islamic terrorists have in common is an apocalyptic vision and ideology to be consummated in a final battle with the infidels at the end of the Age. In 2010 while in New York at the Warwick Hotel, I arranged through Iran’s then-foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Fox News Network’s first interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
All Iranian politicians were ushered from the room and mullah clerics were seated out of camera view. They were praying to the Mahdi, the mystical Islamic messiah, while their president was interviewed. Ahmadinejad and his clerics believe the Mahdi will return to lead the final battle against the infidels at the end of days. Before answering the first question posed, the president offered a prayer to the Mahdi.
The first question asked of the Iranian leader by Fox news anchor Eric Shawn was: “Is the Mahdi coming soon? According to your theology, an apocalypse will usher him in.”
Ahmadinejad nodded his head yes, and then added, “The Mahdi is coming very, very soon.”
I asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if there were any similarities between the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 and the rest of radical Islam. He responded, “Yes. They all believe in a mystical leader, the Mahdi, who disappeared over 1,000 years ago and who will return in a great apocalyptic war. It will claim the lives of millions. It almost mandates this kind of configuration. That is why these people are willing to commit suicide. They want to inspire hundreds of millions to join them in a religious war against other Muslims and against the West.”
The prime minister continued, “They say we are the Small Satan and America is the Great Satan. Europe is the middle-sized Satan.”
The obsession ISIS has for the Mahdi is so great that they will not even refer to their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the Mahdi. They truly want a global war and are waiting for more nations to sign-on to fight them. This will, they believe, usher in the final battle.
I asked the same question about radical Islam to Israel’s Minister of Defense, Lt. General Moshe Ya’alon. His response was:
"They are attempting to impose a new caliphate upon the world. They call it the nation of Islam, and see America as the spearhead of Western culture and religion. Their strategic goals, however, is to defeat Western values and to establish the new caliphate in the nation of Islam. They fire up their apocalyptic appeals to the masses, letting them know there is a sense of urgency.”
ISIS is so obsessed that they will usher in the Mahdi for the final battle that its adherents have pasted “a Caliphate in Accordance with the Prophetic Method” — on the coins it has minted, on the badges soldiers wear and even on a billboard marking the beginning of ISIS territory. Read more.
