IRBIL, Iraq — The chief spokesman for the Islamic State has called on the group’s supporters throughout the world to act on their own initiative to attack Western civilian and military targets in retaliation for the U.S.-led coalition’s aerial attacks in Iraq. In an audiotape released Monday, the group’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, also vowed that the group would kill Western men and enslave their women even as he accused the Western news media of distortion by inaccurately portraying the group as violent.

In his rambling diatribe, al-Adnani referred to the anti-Islamic State coalition as “crusaders,” called President Barack Obama “the mule of the Jews” and labeled Secretary of State John Kerry an “uncircumcised old geezer.”

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The Islamic State calls on supporters around the world to kill Western men and enslave Western women in an audio recording released Monday. Militants from the Islamic State killed at least 40 people during attacks in western Iraq on Monday. The Associated Press

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way, however it may be,” al-Adnani said, according to an English translation posted online by Al-Furqan Media, the communications arm of the Islamic State.

“Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict,” he said. “Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.”

The White House said it would have no comment on the audiotape. There was no immediate indication that al-Adnani’s call for individuals to act on their own had prompted U.S. agencies to increase their terrorist warnings.

U.S. officials have said for years that the threat of terrorism has evolved in much of the world from carefully planned actions by groups to individual actions carried out by sympathizers not formally associated with any organization. The most recent example of the threat was the May 24 shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in Brussels, which left four people dead. The suspect is a French citizen who’s thought to have fought with the Islamic State in Syria.

Hundreds of Europeans and scores of Americans are thought to have traveled to Syria to fight with the Islamic State.

Last week, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that a lone Islamic State supporter could stage an attack in the U.S.

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