Hours after shocking world with desert execution of 300 Syrian soldiers, ISIS parade captured Kurds then behead one on video

August 29th, 2014 Royaltygist Foreign, National, News, Politics 0 comments 26

Islamic State have released a new decapitation video, threatening America for the second time and urging the Kurds to break from their alliance with the West against the caliphate.

Just hours after Islamic State released shocking footage of the mass execution of 300 Syrian national army soldiers in the Syrian desert, Islamic State have issued a second warning to the United States.

The grainy video, accompanied by the hashtag ‘2ndAmessagetoAmerica’, shows the vicious beheading of a Kurdish soldier, who was part of a group of 15 fighters likely to have been captured by Islamic State during the fighting in Iraq.

The group’s first warning ten days ago was entitled ‘A Message to America’ and showed the decapitation of American journalist James Foley.

Scroll down for video

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Video of the beheading comes hours after footage emerged of the execution of 300 Syrian soldiers

Jihadists issue their warning that the beheadings will continue if the U.S. continues to support the Kurds

In the latest video, the captors first issue a warning they will continue to decapitate prisoners should America continue to support the Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State.

They then behead one of the captives on a sandy roadside in Iraq, where the Great Mosque of Mosul can be seen in the background.

Kurdish forces have been in fierce fighting with Islamic State since June and their militias have been beginning to receive considerable amounts of armaments from Western powers including the USA and UK.

It is the latest front line in a brutal power struggle taking place through Syria and Iraq as the Islamic State attempts to extend its influence and impose Sharia law across the region.

While the captives and executors are dressed in similar fashion to those seen in the James Foley execution 10 days ago, it is unclear if the two incidents were carried out by the same people.

The production of the propaganda video also differs – with the beheading shown alongside still images of American and Kurdish officials in an attempt to help convey the executioner’s message.

In the six minute video, which has not been independently verified, the prisoners, who are are seen wearing orange boiler suits similar to those worn by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, confirm that they had been fighting for the Peshmerga, and had been captured by the jihadist group.

The video includes one earlier shot of the Kurdish soldiers, appearing to still be wearing their Peshmerga uniforms, shortly after they were captured. Speaking in Kurdish, one of the prisoners, Hassan Mohammed Hashin, reads out a carefully pre-prepared statement, lambasting the Kurdish leaders: ‘You have made a huge mistake by joining hands with America.’

It then shows one of the prisoners kneeling in the sandy ground of what appears to be a roadside square near Mosul, believed to be al-Saed. In the background, the Great mosque of Mosul can be seen, where Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now self-proclaimed caliph Ibrahim, made his speech in early July.

Three Islamic State fighters stand behind the Kurdish soldiers wearing an almost identical black uniform to the British jihadist who executed American journalist James Foley last week.

Speaking in Arabic, one of the masked fighters standing in the centre begins to deliver his hateful message to the Americans: ‘In the name of God, peace be upon him. I have two messages: the first one is for the dog of Roman, the jerk Obama, how did you send your nation and soldiers again to Iraq, did you forget the thousands of dead Americans who you gave them as a sacrifice for wars. Did you forget thousands of images of corpses, deformed and those people who still suffer?

‘Did the economy of America recovered from its crises to get into a new one? But the second message is for the servant of the Jewish Mas’od, this is the destiny of one of the militant and others who you sent to Muslims unless you finish your work with the Jewish and your allied with the Crusaders.’

The jihadist condemns Obama’s decision for America’s support for the Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State, insisting that ‘by God’s will your intervention and your offence to Muslims will finish you and your America.’ As well as threatening America again, the second part of the jihadist’s speech was to condemn the alliance between Iraqi Kurdistan and America’s military support.

Unsheathing a large knife from his belt, the jihadist grabs hold of the prisoner’s dark hair, tilts his head back and begins to cut off the head. Like the terrifying video of James Foley’s execution, the camera cuts away to only later show a brief shot of the decapitation.

The Islamic State executor vows to keep beheading more of the prisoners if America and the Iraqi Kurdistan continue to work together, warning ‘this is the destiny of all the other prisoners if you don’t stop your alliance with the crusaders.’

The video ends with Islamic State fighters parading near Mosul in armoured personnel carriers, waving flags and brandishing their weapons in the air. Since the video was released by social media users supporting Islamic State, it has been accompanied by the hashtags ‘2ndAmessagetoAmerica’ and ‘AmessagetoBarzani’.

The United States has launched humanitarian aid packages and scores of bombing attacks on Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Iraq in a bid to assist Kurdish and Iraqi forces in their fightback.

But discussion has now shifted to whether the strikes should extend into Syria, where the militants have a safe haven and recently executed 300 Syrian soldiers.

President Barack Obama at first seemed to largely rule out that option, a decision that came as little surprise, given his long opposition to plunging the U.S. military into Syria, a country ravaged by civil war.

But staying out of Syria got more complicated after the extremists announced last week that they had killed American journalist James Foley and threatened to kill additional U.S. hostages in Syria.

Joint Chief of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey has said unequivocally that the Islamic State can only be defeated if the U.S. were to go after the group in Syria as well as Iraq.

Obama said Thursday that he was weighing the prospect of military action in Syria, but yesterday tamped down any suggestion that such a move was imminent. And he said that even if he were ultimately to authorize strikes, they would have to come in conjunction with a broader regional strategy that addresses political turmoil in both Iraq and Syria.

Yesterday it was also being reported that the first soldier fighting for the Lebanese Armed Forces in Syria has been beheaded by Islamic State. Photos on social media have been released by IS, allegedly showing the head of a Lebanese Shiite soldier.

Kurdish fighters have been in fierce fighting with Islamic State since last June. Their latest counter attack against the jihadists has forced Islamic State fighters to retreat from the lucrative oil fields of Ain Zalah.

The Peshmerga, literally meaning ‘those who face death’, further enhanced these recent successes by regaining control of parts of Zumar and Rab’ia in Ninevah province, bringing them closer to their target of re-taking Sinjar.

The Kurdish militias have been beginning to receive considerable amounts of armaments from Western powers including the USA and UK as well as several local neighbours like Iran.

Meanwhile, the video released earlier yesterday shows Islamic State militants parading around 300 captured soldiers through the desert in their underwear before they are killed and their bodies piled on the bare earth.

An Islamic State fighter claimed the men were from the Syrian government’s Tabqa air base which extremists seized on Sunday, potentially handing them warplanes, tanks, artillery and ammunition.

The video, which has not been independently verified, is too graphic to be published in full.

It begins by showing dozens of men being marched through the desert wearing only their underwear. It then fades to black, resuming with a pile of bloodied bodies stacked on top of one another.

+20

As the horrific footage progresses it pans slowly across a vast line of men who appear to be dead, and whose bodies have been laid out one by one.

The line forms a slow crescent across the desert, seemingly stretching to the horizon as militants stand beside it. Eventually, after more than a minute, the cameraman reaches the end of the line.

Its description on Youtube said it showed the execution of Army officers and Nusayri people, a significant minority of Shia Muslims in Syria.

A caption to another version of the video said: ‘The 250 shabeeha taken captive by the Islamic State from Tabqa in Raqqa have been executed.’ Shabeeha is the Islamist name for soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

An Islamic State fighter in Raqqa told Reuters: ‘Yes we have executed them all’.

ISIS executes 250 Syrian soldiers (GRAPHIC CONTENT)

Before they were killed, the men’s captors chanted ‘Islamic State’ – to which they replied: ‘It will remain’.

Islamic State won a week-long battle on Sunday to capture the Tabqa base, which is 25 miles from their Syrian stronghold in Raqqa.

Syria’s authorities insisted at the time that their soldiers had ‘successfully regrouped’ – suggesting they were later hunted down by the militants and executed.

Despite heavy losses on the Islamic State side, the base’s capture prompted fresh fears that the fighters have got hold of advanced military technology which will allow them to cement their self-declared regime.

Video footage has already suggested Islamic State fighters have drones which were used to shoot reconnaissance footage of an army base.

Today’s reported mass killing also underscores how the group uses images of violence as much as violence itself to terrorise its opponents, as it sweeps further into Syria and Iraq.

Nadim Houry, deputy director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East, described the video as ‘another ISIS war crime’.

And yesterday a UN commission accused the extremist group of committing crimes against humanity in Syria, similar to those it has already committed in Iraq.

Yet the extremists are also in touch with modern ideas of PR, releasing glossy magazines in English which feature mutilated bodies to promote their cause in the West.

The Home Secretary has sounded fresh warnings over the radicalisation of young Brits, with authorities fearing around 500 have joined an array of jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria.

Extremists have declared a self-styled caliphate, a Sunni regime ordering its subjects to operate under an extreme interpretation of Sharia law.

It has opened up three fronts in the fighting in Syria, which is already home to a bloody and long-running civil war between President Assad’s forces and anti-government rebels.

Death march: Another video appearing to show the same march through the desert was put on social media

Today CNN claimed the militants in Iraq have also been burning oil wells near the town of Zummar, which is crucial because it is near a road which links Mosul to the Syrian border.

The network suggested fighters are attempting to ‘cover their tracks’ as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters draw closer.

The Islamic State extremists now control roughly a third of Syria, mostly areas in the north and east of the country, as the U.S. threatens air strikes similar to those already used in Iraq.

But the situation is complicated as Washington has claimed the Syrian government – embroiled in a bloody civil war – is part of the problem despite offering itself as a force against extremism.

French President Francois Hollande added today that President Assad, whose forces used brutal force to crush what began as a peaceful uprising three years ago, was no ally in the fight against Islamic State.