They’re trying to jack up their morale after a lot of recent losses.
Via The Blaze:
An Islamic State group spokesman says the jihadist group aims to “blow up” the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower on its way to conquering Paris, Rome, Portugal and Spain.
The threat was delivered Thursday by spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in a nearly 30-minute audio message titled, “So They Kill And Are Killed.” The title refers to a verse in the Koran.
“We want, Allah willing, Paris before Rome and before Al-Andalus [Spain and Portugal], [and] after that we will blacken your life and blow up your White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower, Allah willing,” Adnani said.
He also offered a list of sites further east the group aims to conquer: “We want Kabul, Karachi, the Caucasus, Qom, Riyadh and Tehran. We want Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Sanaa, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Amman. And Muslims shall return to ruling and leadership everywhere.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute, which translated the message, observed that the spokesman was trying to boost the morale of Islamic State fighters in light of recent attacks against them by U.S.-led coalition forces and local opponents.