ISIS may be on the run in Iraq, but it is now calling for an insidious way to murder those in the West: poison the food in grocery stores.
The U.S.-based jihadi monitoring group SITE Intelligence reports, “In the third part of an English-language series promoting lone-wolf jihad in Western countries, potential attackers are advised to inject food for sale in markets with cyanide poison.”
ISIS supporters writing in the Furat Wilayah channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram posted this message: “First method: poison.”
In October 2015, a guide for jihadists published “six ways to kill the Jews,” including “stab him, burn him, poison him.” Another guide offered advice on poisoning food eaten by “crusaders.”
The rhetoric about poisoning Westerners is not an idle threat; Amer Sinan Alhaggagi, a 22-year-old man from San Francisco, allegedly tried to support ISIS, and distributed drugs laced with rat poison in nightclubs in the Bay Area. ABC reported Alhaggagi contacted an undercover agent about mixing highly-toxic pesticide strychnine and cocaine.
In July, reports surfaced about a Lebanese suspect, directed by ISIS, who planned to bring down a flight from Australia to the United Arab Emirates by releasing a poison gas hidden inside a Barbie doll and a meat grinder.
In Iraq, ISIS has tested poisons on prisoners, reminiscent of Nazi experiments on prisoners in World War II. Papers at Mosul University documenting the group’s use of “human guinea pigs” to test chemical agents were verified by British and U.S. forces, according to The Times.