ISIS celebrates death toll from California wildfires in latest newsletter

The Islamic State terror group has celebrated the death toll from the recent wildfires that have struck California in the latest edition of its newsletter.

At least 41 people have been killed and more than 100 have been injured in the blazes that broke out across California earlier this month. While ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the wildfires, the group issued a report detailing the death toll and the property damage estimates of the blazes.

"The fires that broke out Sunday (Muharram/18) swept the state, displaced thousands of people and destroyed more than 200,000 hectares of land. Strong winds have led to the hampering of the efforts of nearly 8,000 firefighters fighting 20 fires," the group stated in its weekly Al-Naba magazine, according to Newsweek. "Meteorological forecasts do not indicate improved weather conditions," it added.

ISIS had previously encouraged its followers to try arson as a terror tactic, and supporters have recently suggested laying gasoline-filled bottles in the woods to inflict further damage.

Last week, a suspected ISIS supporter used the encrypted messaging application Telegram to post an image of a forest fire above a second image of two liquid-filled plastic bottles. The images came with the caption, "with only 4€" in Arabic, followed by a series of emojis indicating gasoline, trees, flames, hospitals and homes.

The image was posted on a group called the Abu al-Mughira al-Qahtani Batallion, which was named after an ISIS Libya commander who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in November 2015.

Newsweek noted that the post was likely a reference to the wildfires that broke out in Spain and Portugal earlier this month. The wildfires have resulted in the deaths of at least 44 people, mostly in Portugal, prompting the Portuguese Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa to resign.

In the fifth issue of the Al-Rumiyah English-language digital magazine, released in January, the terror group included instructions for "Arson Attacks," under the "Just Terror Tactics" section.

The magazine, which featured a flaming cover, specifically includes "forest fires" as a method of attack and included instructions on how to create flammable weapons such as molotov cocktails.

The article suggested that would-be jihadists could carry out such attacks on places like "houses and apartment buildings, forest areas adjacent to residential areas, factories that produce cars, furniture, clothing, flammable substances, etc., gas stations, hospitals, bars, dance clubs, night clubs, banks, car showrooms, schools, universities, as well as churches, Rafidi [Shiite] temples, and so forth. The options are vast, leaving no excuse for delay."

Police recently arrested an arson suspect in Sonoma but dismissed the rumor that he was connected to the blazes.

Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, a transient, is being held in custody at the Sonoma County Jail for starting a small blaze in Maxwell Farms Regional Park in Sonoma, where he was known by patrol officers to sleep. He told the authorities that he had started the small fire at the park in order to keep warm.

CalFire noted that the causes of the wildfires remain under investigation. At the peak of the fires, as many as 21 major blazes burned across California, charring 245,000 acres and forcing 100,000 people to evacuate.