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By Mark Hosenball
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A grotesque and violent homemade video posted on YouTube may offer some insights into the mindset of the Michigan-based Hutaree Militia, nine of whose members have been arrested by the feds for allegedly plotting to kill an unidentified local cop and then attack other police officers who gathered for his funeral.
The video, entitled "American Jihad," can be viewed here (WARNING: graphic content, though the violence is also rather cartoonish) (UPDATE, 3/30: The video has been removed from YouTube). The short film appears to be an attempt to simultaneously copy and parody the kind of beheading videos that previously had been the stock in trade of particularly bloodthirsty Middle East jihadists like the late head of Al Qaeda's Iraqi branch, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The video's credits identify as its creator and costar Kris Sickles; a Kristopher [sic] Sickles, of Sandusky, Ohio, is one of nine alleged Hutaree members who were indicted today by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges ranging from gun possession to sedition and attempting to use weapons of mass destruction.
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The video shows a corpulent, long-haired man driving in his car along what appears to be a snow-covered rural road. The car soon breaks down. The man curses, gets out of the car, and walks to a local house. He knocks on the door and, after getting no reply, enters the house. After descending the stairs to the basement, he discovers what appears to be a blood-covered body lying on the floor, and then is set upon by two attackers whose features are entirely obscured by gas masks and camouflage uniforms. The attackers proceed to threaten and then torture the wayward motorist, leaving him spattered with what appears to be Hershey's chocolate sauce (but which is probably intended to look like blood). Finally, one of the attackers starts chopping at the victim's head with a machete; the picture then cuts to the attacker holding up what appears to be a severed head. Throughout the attack, what sounds like the kind of music track that accompanies "official" Al Qaeda videos plays loudly in the background. The only distinctive words that can be made out are the Arabic words Allahu Akhbar: God Is Great.
The Sandusky Register newspaper identified the Kristopher Sickles who was arrested and indicted in the alleged Hutaree plot as the video's producer and reported that he goes by the nickname "Pale Horse." In the video credit identifying Sickles as the film's creator (and also as one of the camouflaged attackers), he is also described, no doubt accurately, as "The Coolest Guy in the World."
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