BAGHDAD/BEIRUT: Islamic State’s beheading of a US journalist and its threat to “destroy the American cross” suggests it has gained enough confidence seizing large areas of Iraq and Syria to take aim at American targets despite the risks.

On Tuesday night, Islamic State released a video purporting to show one of its fighters beheading James Foley, who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago.

The black-clad executioner, who spoke English with a British accent, also produced another American journalist and said his fate depends on President Barack Obama’s next move.

Obama on Wednesday called for a joint effort to eliminate the “cancer” posed by the militants.

Obama said the entire world was appalled by the beheading of 40-year-old Foley, whose parents he had spoken to, and “told them we are all heartbroken at their loss.”

“There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread. It has to be a clear rejection of these kind of nihilistic ideologies,” Obama said.

“One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century,” he said, using the acronym for the group when it was formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

He said the group speaks for no true religion, and threatens Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

“Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents,” Obama said.

It seems clear that Islamic State is raising the stakes, aware that the gruesome death of an American and the image of another one at the mercy of an executioner who is taunting a US president could invite retaliation — heavier airstrikes at least.

Perhaps the most telling video was one released just before Foley was shown in an orange jump suit to remind Americans that militants are still angry at the detention of Muslims at Guantanamo Bay.

The earlier video suggested Islamic State was gearing up for an existential holy war between the caliphate and the crusader America, with the threat to destroy “The American Cross.”

WESTERN PASSPORTS

In one scene an American soldier weeps after losing a comrade and the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace” can be heard. In another, there is heavy breathing from the Star Wars movie character Darth Vader.

Reacting to the video, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari called on the international community to help his country battle the “savage” Islamic State.

But the United States and other Western powers may now be diverting their attention away from the Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq to what they are capable of doing overseas.

The group can draw on hundreds if not thousands of foreigners with Western passports that can keep them below the radar, like the British-sounding man who appeared to have killed Foley, to carry out its threats.

Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdish region’s National Security Council, recently told Reuters he was concerned about Islamic State sleeper cells in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

But he seemed equally anxious about a broader problem.

“Many of the members of (Islamic State) that have come from abroad have come from Europe, from the US, from the Middle East and North Africa — all over the world,” said Barzani.

“These are people that are not going to die in battles in Iraq and Syria. Many of these people will go back to their countries of origin, becoming potential leaders or terrorist operatives, which could really become a bigger threat to their own countries.”

Western countries are well aware of the issue — nine people suspected of planning to join militants in Syria were detained in Austria on Wednesday — but can they come up with tactics to tackle it?

“We are absolutely aware that there are significant numbers of British nationals involved in terrible crimes, probably in the commission of atrocities, making Jihad with (Islamic State) and other extremist organizations,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC.

“I don’t think this video changes anything. It just heightens awareness of a situation which is very grave and which we’ve been working on for several months.”

Jamal Khashoggi, a long-time expert on Al-Qaeda who interviewed Osama Bin Laden, said that caution and concerns over security may have kept Islamic State from carrying out attacks on Western targets so far.

But under the right conditions it will not hesitate.

“If they can blow up a suicide bombers in Times Square this afternoon they’ll do it. What is keeping them from doing that is vigilance and security,” he said.

“But we have to admit that they are targeting all of us. If they can launch a terrorist attack in Riyadh, New York or London they’ll do that.”