The British-accented narrator in Sunday's Islamic State (ISIS) video goaded President Barack Obama to send in U.S. ground forces if he wanted to try and stop the Islamists,
CNN reported.
The film showed militants slaughtering 18 members of the Syrian armed forces as well as the remains of American hostage Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig.
A convert to Islam during his captivity, Kassig was a former Army Ranger. Something may have gone wrong from the point of view of his executioners because ISIS edited out the actual killing,
The New York Times reported.
Analysts interpret the propaganda video's mocking tone and conspicuously brutal — even for ISIS — depiction of the butchery as a sign that
the group is growing more desperate, CNN reported. ISIS is being pounded by U.S.-led airstrikes and on Saturday was driven out of a
key oil refinery by Iraqi government troops.
"I think it's a sign of desperation," said Haras Rafiq of the Quilliam Foundation. "I think it's a sign that they know and feel they are under attack, they're under siege and they're struggling," CNN reported.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Iraq over the weekend, The Times reported. U.S. officials say American airpower is making it more difficult for ISIS to communicate and move forces and supplies.
Dempsey said that American leaders are considering introducing ground forces to help retake Iraq's northern city of Mosul from ISIS, according to CNN.
The general added that there was no intention "to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent." The number of U.S. military advisers authorized for Iraq was raised to 3,000, according to the Times.
U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and ended military operations in 2011. The administration of George W. Bush originally launched the war in search of weapons of mass destruction it believed were in the possession of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. The
Islamic State is a Sunni movement and many of its strategists are former officers of Saddam's army.
ISIS is fighting a predominantly Shiite Iraqi government and military as well as Shiite militias – all Arabs, the Times reported.
It is simultaneously engaged in
battling the Kurds who are Sunnis but not Arabs.