There was an incredible amount of uninformed media discussion last night about the nature of the black flag the hostage taker was making hostages hold up.

Media tried to discount any connection to ISIS claiming the flag was “a Shahada flag”, not an ISIS flag. What many didn’t seem to realize was that ‘shahada’ was the Islamic creed or statement that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. Both the flag shown and the ISIS flag have the Shahada on it.

After all that discussion, perhaps because of it, the hostage taker asked for an ISIS flag, perhaps to disabuse those who seemed to be missing the point.

After last night's extensive debate about whether the hostage-taker had an "official" lSIS flag, he asks for an ISIS flag.

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) December 15, 2014