"Good on Behalf of Islam" 

"[What lies ahead] will be worse -- with Allah's permission."
"[Attack] disbelieving [Western countries to] target the crusaders in their own lands and wherever they are found. [Use explosives, guns, knives, cars, rocks] or even a boot or a fist."
"Indeed, you saw what a single Muslim did with Canada and its Parliament of shirk [?], and what our brothers in France, Australia and Belgium did, may Allah have mercy upon them all and reward them with good on behalf of Islam."
"And there were many others who killed, ran others over, threatened, frightened and terrorized people, to the extent that we saw the crusader armies deployed on the streets in Australia, Canada, France, Belgium and other strongholds of the cross."
Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, ISIS spokesman; al-Furqan

AFP / Getty Images  An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on July 8, 2012, shows a man identified as Abu Muhammad al-Adnani,

This is an incitement to violence against the West, it is not a preamble to exhorting Muslims living in the West to act as good citizens of the countries to which they turned for haven when life in their countries of origin was unbearable due to ongoing conflicts, sectarian violence, government oppression, poverty, unemployment, fear and the aspiration to live a life promising of human advancement and liberties.

Human advancement and freedoms, justice and equality may have been found in the West, along with opportunities denied them elsewhere, but the bored, impressionable youth among the immigrant Muslim populations in Europe, North America and Australia, have also heeded in significant enough numbers, the call to jihad, that all faithful Muslims are exhorted to respond to. The latest nine-minute audio clip appearing on Twitter will doubtless inspire others to respond as newborn mujahideen.

The threats expressed against the West are clear enough; their intention more than graphically supplied in events taking place in France, Canada and Australia most recently and before that elsewhere in the world with brutal regularity. Let alone the shock value of recent videoed beheadings. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and al-Qaeda are in the business of terrorism and they pride themselves on doing that job well, and in inspiring through their successes, new recruits.

Their successes are their calling cards. In Canada, the calling cards have been read, weighed, and the government has responded to their portent by dispatching a number of Canadian special forces soldiers on the ground in Iraq, and warplanes to join the U.S.-led coalition which has pledged to aid Iraq in its battle against ISIS. There are also ongoing air assaults in Syria, notably to assist the Kurds in their existential fight against those same malign forces.

Canadian solders "acting in self defence, effectively returned fire, neutralizing the threat" of attack against them as part of Operation IMPACT, as described by Captain Paul Forget of the Canadian Armed Forces. The rules of engagement, explained Capt. Forget, have not changed since the Canadian special forces arrived in Iraq in September. "I don't think I would characterize that as the new norm, but rather as more of -- a bit of a state of evolution of our role in the advise-and-assist capacity", he clarified.

Canadian soldiers are actively engaged in teaching their Iraqi counterparts more than merely "the basics of warfare". Truth to tell, the Iraqi armed forces need instruction on more than the 'basics' of warfare. They seem hardly capable, despite American tutelage in defence, to respond forcefully to ISIS advances. Canada's CF-18 warplanes since last Monday completed a dozen air strikes, helping to achieve momentum against ISIS in northern Iraq by Iraqi forces, in their efforts to attempt to restore national command of Mosul, the second largest city in the country.

A Canadian Armed Forces aircrew member waits for the arrival of the CP-140M Aurora aircraft in Kuwait. The Auroras , with their cutting-edge sensors, have been a boon to coalition forces. Photo: Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Department of National Defence

And although the government of Canada had stated initially that this was not an active combat position that Canada was undertaking in joining the coalition against ISIS, Canadian forces will strike back with effectiveness if and when they come under attack. There are no illusions that this is anything but a war zone in which they have been tasked to aid the Iraqi government to forestall and defeat any further ISIS advances. And it is abundantly clear that the Iraqi forces on their own are fecklessly incapable.

The mass killings, rapes, abductions and the creation of hordes of new refugees across Iraq and Syria, the critical oppression of Christians and Yazidis and attempts to overtake Kurd militias on the part of the Islamic State call upon other countries of the world to aid invaded countries in their desperate efforts to combat the cult of death and destruction favouring the ideology of an Islamist Caliphate setting out to conquer first the Middle East, then the Globe.