Peshmerga fighters sit on top of an armoured vehicle on the front line of fighting with ISIS militants 20 kilometres east of Mosul, on August 18, 2014.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group that has seized large parts of Iraq and drawn the first American air strikes since the end of the occupation in 2011 has warned the United States it will attack Americans “in any place” if the raids hit its militants.

The video, which shows a photograph of an American who was beheaded during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and victims of snipers, featured a statement which said in English “we will drown all of you in blood.”

U.S. airstrikes on Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have helped the fighters take back some territory captured by ISIS militants, who have threatened to march on Baghdad.

The latest advance by ISIS, an al-Qaeda offshoot, sent tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi ethnic minority and Christians fleeing for their lives and alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies.

Unlike al-Qaeda, ISIS has so far focused on seizing land in Iraq and Syria for its self-proclaimed caliphate, not spectacular attacks on Western targets.

U.S. President Barack Obama said at a news conference on Monday that ISIS posed a threat to Iraq and the entire region.

 
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