Al-Qaeda in Iraq Releases Shocking GoPro-Quality Propaganda Video

At CNN, "Brutal terrorist group showcases their violence in glossy new video":

A shocking and frightening new video produced and released by a terrorist group formerly associated with al Qaeda is showcasing horrific killing sprees in Iraq deliberately recorded on camera.

"The Clanging of the Swords” is a graphic and disturbing film made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Running over an hour, it displays bombings, executions, kidnappings, beheadings and more.  Analysts say the video proves ISIS - a group so extreme that al Qaeda has disowned it - is becoming an even deadlier threat, and they wonder who is providing it with weapons, and the equipment needed to produce the videos.

"This is funded," says Nadia Oweidat, a Middle East Analyst. "This is geopolitics. There is money behind it. It's not just idiots; these idiots have somebody controlling them and providing them with equipment that is very expensive. You can't just get it in a cave."

A far cry from the grainy out-of-focus terrorism videos that have proliferated in the past decade, this one has glossy camerawork and high-level production techniques – as if these terrorists had taken cues from Hollywood movies like "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty" in order to maximize the terror for viewers.

The full video is here, "This is what happens when you give al-Qaeda a bunch of GoPro cameras and have a professional video editor as a member of your terror cell."

And this isn't the "former" terrorist group al Qaeda. This is al Qaeda. See CFR, "Al-Qaeda in Iraq (a.k.a. Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria)."