CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES! – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  It's wonderful, young people achieving their dreams.  Uh, well, maybe not exactly  But it's young people achieving something or other.  Let's hear it for the young graduates.  From Fox: 

The black-clad graduates listened intently as speakers inspired them to change the world, but instead of caps and gowns, they wore masks and fatigues, and in place of diplomas, they clutched AK-47s.

Photos tweeted out from the Islamic State in Syria in the last few days showed the terror group's latest “graduating class,” which included dozens of foreign fighters who came to Syria to join the Islamic caliphate. The graduation pictures capped 18 months of training in ideology and weaponry at a university in Deir Az-Zour, in northern Syria, and grads are now ready to advance to killing in the cause of radical Islam. Experts say ISIS has reasons for attaching the formal trappings of commencement exercises to the training of its fighters.

“There are two messages being sent by ISIS besides the obvious shock factor: First, their caliphate is an actual functioning and legitimate state. Second, this is long-term struggle,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst and adjunct professor of Homeland Security for the Clarion Project. “This is a way of saying that ISIS has succeeded (in creating a state) where Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have failed.”

By promoting their special force in a series of propaganda photos, experts said ISIS is sending a message to potential recruits that it has created a professional, deadly and well-equipped force ready to protect its expanding Caliphate.

“The graduation photos send a message by ISIS that it has a military capacity ready to defend the Islamic Caliphate – a ‘government’ that has not lost control and will be able to defend its ‘territory,’ said Jasmine Opperman, the African-based analyst for the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium.

COMMENT:  Oh, that's okay.  Who are we to question their culture?  In fact, I may well go online and find appropriate graduation gifts to recommend to you, our generous readers.

I think a quality storage box for suicide belts would be nice, don't you?  I found a lovely one that could double as a carrying bag for hand grenades.  Buying is so much fun.

March 31, 2015