ISIS Features Rick Santorum In 'Words of the Enemy' Propaganda Article; Former Sen. Says ISIS Quoted Him More Accurately Than The New York Times
In the newly released edition of the Islamic State's monthly English-language magazine, the terrorist group featured and quoted three American "crusaders," including potential 2016 presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who have consistently voiced their concerns with the jihadists' rise and ambitions.
The Dabiq article titled "In the Words of the Enemy" features photos of Santorum, Virginia state Sen. Richard Black and former CIA officer and author Gary Berntsen, who are all quoted at length in the article on their various warnings about the group's abilities to expand its caliphate.
Santorum, who's a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and the runner-up in the 2012 Republican presidential primary election, has been speaking at length in speeches and appearances about the ISIS threat and the need to "bomb ISIS back to the seventh century."
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The Dabiq article quoted the 56-year-old "Catholic crusader" as asserting that strong action needs to be taken by the U.S. and its allies to eliminate the group, or else ISIS will continue to grow.
"This caliphate that has been established and that means they are calling people from all over the world to come and fight this battle. As long as they hold ground and continue to expand that ground, more and more will come," Santorum is quoted as saying. "The fact that we are delaying means that the caliphate continues to exist. They are not losing ground. They are not being discredited in the eyes of the Muslim world. They will get stronger."
The article adds that Santorum warned that ISIS is "dead serious" about its desire to expand beyond the borders of its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, which has already started to happen with the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria pledging allegiance to ISIS and militant groups in Libya and Egypt doing the same.
"This is really important to understand. The reason the West had a thousand year war with Islam is that Islam was ever expanding. When Islam began to contract, it collapsed, and the caliphate was eliminated. Now they have established a caliphate. They are dead serious about expanding it," Santorum explained. "Unless we begin to take back that ground and make this caliphate just irrelevant in the eyes of the radical Muslim world, we are going to have a bigger and bigger problem."
A local Pennsylvania newspaper, The Morning Call, reported that ISIS' quote of Santorum originated from an interview that Santorum did with Fox News in late February.
Even though ISIS' quoting of Santorum indicates that the militant group is paying attention to what is being said about it by American politicians and public officials, Santorum doesn't seem to be too concerned to be on ISIS' radar and quipped in an appearance Wednesday morning on "Fox & Friends" that ISIS actually quoted him more precisely than one of America's leading news sources.
"The difference is ISIS actually quoted me accurately compared to The New York Times," Santorum said. "Which is sort of a remarkable comment on the state of the media today."
Santorum added that ISIS likely used his words rather than those of President Barack Obama because of the administration's refusal to identify ISIS as having a connection to radical Islam.
"They put it out there because it accurately described who they are, which is, again, a comment on this administration and their unwillingness to deal directly with the truth about who ISIS is," Santorum said. "They're a global jihadist movement. They've established a caliphate; they want to expand that caliphate. And I explained what that was about. So, I took it as them actually finding an American politician who actually described them as who they really are."
Although the Dabiq article quoted Santorum, Black and Berntsen as enemies of ISIS, it made no indication that threats have been made on their lives.
