The news that the Islamic State (ISIS) has members
who are being trained to fly fighter jets that it has captured is part of its effort to ultimately "defeat and seize Rome," says Middle East expert Dr. Robert Rabil.
Rabil told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV Friday that training the pilots is part of a propaganda effort "to say, 'Listen, we are here, we are staying.'"
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"From the literature they are putting out, we are going to face what they call is the last and final crusade," he explained. "Not only are we going to defeat you, we are going to defeat you, and then, we are going after you."
"Where? In Rome," he said.
"This is what they are saying — given that the majority of the people there, they are Christian and they are fighting them," the professor of Middle East studies at Florida Atlantic University contends.
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"They are saying, 'After we defeat you there, we are going after you, and we are going to defeat and seize Rome,'" Rabil added.
"To them, it is the hour, they call it, this is the hour, the final hour, this is the final confrontation, and they are calling on many people to go and many people from other Salafi jihadi organizations to join them to defeat what they call us, the crusaders," he explained.
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