Islamist fanatics today posted a video apparently showing five British and Australian recruits appealing to other Muslims to join their jihad in Iraq and Syria.
In the propaganda footage, There Is No Life Without Jihad, they also threatened attacks in Jordan and Lebanon.
One fighter, named as Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni from Britain, said: “We are a state who is implementing the sharia (Islamic law) in both Iraq and Sham (Syria) — and look at the soldiers. We understand no borders.
“We have participated in battles in Sham and we will go to Iraq in a few days and we will fight there, Allah permitting, and come back and we will even go to Jordan and Lebanon with no problems.”
The other militants were identified as Abu Bara’ al-Hindi and Abu Dujana al-Hindi, also from Britain, and Abu Yahya al-Shami and Abu Nour al-Iraqi, both from Australia.
Muslims are urged to join “martyrdom”, being told in the internet video: “You are going to die anyway.”
British and Australian security services will be urgently seeking to identify the men who appeared in the video without their faces being masked and sat in a rural area, holding rifles with the jihadists’ black flag flying behind them.
David Cameron warned just days ago that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), which reportedly put out the video, was planning to attack Britain. More than 400 Britons are believed to have travelled to Syria, and possibly Iraq, to join Isis or other extremist groups.
The 13-minute propaganda video was issued as the prime minister of Iraq’s Shia-led government Nouri al-Maliki, who has been accused of discriminating against the country’s Sunni and Kurdish comunities, came under growing pressure. The spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a call for the creation of a new, “effective” government.
