By Nik Rasmussen–The terrorist organization ISIS has been killing non-ISIS members in the Middle East and beheading hostages. A greater fear is it could potentially send agents in to America.
Some in Siouxland are worried about an imminent threat of attack
Jianna Hoss, news director at Morningside College’s television station MCTV, keeps up to date on the news using Al Jazeera and BBC primarily, and sometimes by using CNN and FOX to gather other opinions.
“The situation with ISIS is extremely concerning to me,” said Hoss. “Not only because my family resides in the Middle East, but also because the threat is spreading to the UK, who upped their security level to ‘severe’ last week, meaning an attack is likely.”
Hoss believes the Ferguson shooting story pulled media attention away from the ISIS threat.
“The situation in Ferguson and the situation with ISIS are the two front runners in the news for the past three weeks,” she said. “News organizations switch from one to the other routinely. I do think that the American people are more concerned with Ferguson, but ISIS is a much larger threat.”
The primary objective of ISIS is to turn the Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria into an Islamic state. ISIS is known for killing dozens of people at any given moment through public executions, crucifixions and other murderous acts. The organization started as an al Qaeda splinter group.
ISIS has already taken over large swaths of northern and western Iraq. Hundreds of square miles are currently controls by the group as well as to ignore international borders and has a presence from Syria’s Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad.
There is very little known about ISIS leader al-Baghdadi, however, a biography posted on jihadist websites in 2013 said he earned a doctorate from a university in Baghdad in Islamic studies. In Salaheddin and Diyala provinces north of the Iraqi capital before joining al Qaeda in Iraq, he formed the militant group. Al-Baghdadi was detained for four years in a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq known as Camp Bucca. He was released in 2009.
Hoss thinks that Morningside students are woefully ignorant about ISIS and other current events.
“Last week I did a speech over why millennials should be watching the news daily and talked about exactly this,” said Hoss. “Students aren’t watching the news, which means some people can’t tell me what Ferguson is, can’t even tell me what countries are primarily involved in the ISIS threat.”
To learn more about ISIS and its threats in the Middle East and here at home, start here and here.
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