REPORT: Las Vegas Strip ISIS Threats Emerge on Video

Lakeisha Holloway

(Getty)

An ISIS propaganda video that makes threats against Las Vegas landmarks caused authorities enough concern in May 2017 that they sent out warning notices to hotels on the famous Strip.

“In the video that calls for lone wolf attacks, several Strip properties were prominently displayed,” reports Las Vegas Now.

On October 2, an active shooter killed at least two people and injured at least 24, 14 critically, at a country music concert at the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas strip. Due to the past propaganda videos, the attack raises obvious concerns about terrorism, but police had not yet revealed a motive or the identity of the gunman. They did say the shooter was down in the hotel, and that they did not believe there was more than one shooter, but the situation was chaotic and fluid. Unconfirmed reports said there might be even more victims. You can read more about that incident here.

In the wake of the terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England on May 22, authorities in Vegas were taking no chances when the earlier propaganda videos were posted, sending alerts to Strip hotels about the video, the news site reported. Authorities believe the Manchester attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, Salman Abedi. ISIS has claimed responsibility for that attack, and authorities have detained Abedi’s two brothers and his father, who is in Libya. Twenty-two people were killed and more than 100 injured.

However, the video was posted before the Manchester attack, and Newsweek reported that it was inspired by the Times Square crash in which Richard Rojas, a U.S. military vet, is accused of driving his car into a crowd of people. Authorities had said they don’t suspect terrorism in that case.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that the Las Vegas ISIS video is 44 minutes long and that Las Vegas police “are treating it as a credible threat.” Here’s a local news story on the threat video:

KTNV reports that some prominent Strip properties can be seen in the video, and it’s not the first time that ISIS videos have mentioned Vegas. The Islamic State released a similar video last year, the TV station reported.

According to the Review Journal, reporting in May 2017, the video is a “legitimate Islamic State group propaganda video posted on social media last week” and it “features brief footage of the Las Vegas Strip while calling for lone-wolf terrorist attacks.”

The newspaper noted that ISIS, which has its own propaganda arm, sometimes posts “similar videos” on a daily basis. According to Newsweek, the new ISIS video also showed other locations throughout the U.S. “In the 44-minute video, photos were shown of multiple locations in the United States, including Times Square, the Las Vegas Strip and banks in Washington D.C.,” reports Newsweek.

“A bearded fighter using the name Abu Hamza al-Amriki specifically mentioned knife attacks and running non-believers over with vehicles before calling for Americans to wage jihad in the U.S,” Newsweek says of the video.

You can read more about Richard Rojas here: