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Press TV has conducted an interview with Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a journalist & political analyst, in London, about ISIL retaliating against US airstrikes by beheading a captured American journalist.

Press TV: We are looking at this decapitation, but let’s go back a couple of years when the US and some of the regional countries were involved in backing some of these terrorist groups. Plenty of warnings coming that they should have been thinking about days like this.

Of course, with the foreign nationals from Europe not to mention US citizens to have been fighting in Syria and now maybe part of this ISIL group it is imminent that this type of scenario was going to unfold.

Is the US going to learn their lesson?

Kara-Mustapha: Probably not. I think this was very much expected to be honest. For the past three years since the events in Syria people have been talking, begging almost Western nations to encourage not to fund not to support these rebel groups in any way shape or form.

We know that they morph and they swell into these monstrous groups that actually carry out the most heinous crimes against civilians essentially.

So really there is nothing remotely surprising about what happened today, the only thing surprising is that it didn’t happen any sooner.

This is after all an American who was captured two to three years ago I believe in Syria. So the idea that this could have happened any time within these past few years should have been an indication of the nature of these groups.
Unfortunately as I’ve said, this has happened as a consequence of the support and funding of the groups in Syria have been received from the West and it is very natural that ISIS, which actually first came into being in Syria, would carry out these kind of crimes in Iraq today.

Press TV: We’re not sure about the US role right now in Iraq today, you know, they came out based o a humanitarian move - Why didn’t they come in before then? That’s the big question.

Do you think that the ISIL ultimately is going to really pose a danger to the US and its interests?

Kara-Mustapha: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head by saying why haven’t they acted before. Today we are all outraged and shocked by the image of an American being beheaded, but let’s be honest, for the best part of six months thousands of Shia Muslims have been beheaded and killed by ISIS militants so this is nothing new.

The only thing particularly striking today is that it has happened to an American national, but of course the first victims of ISIL have been Iraqis and no one has actually lifted a finger, no one has spoken out against it, no one has condemned it in the past.

So we see Americans again reveal this shameful double standard, which is when one of their own is affected then they come out calling it barbaric, criticizing an vowing to take action whilst for the best part of six month they’ve failed to react to the killings of other Iraqis at the hands of ISIS.

If ISIS is actually provoking the US I think it’s a difficult question to answer really because what ISIS is trying to do is to sew division and create more chaos in the region, which is very much in line with what the Americans have been doing for the best part of ten years.

So, it’s almost as if their aims are one in the same. I really don’t know what this act is going to have as a consequence to their relationship.