ISIL Releases Videos of Another Beheading, Mass Execution of Syrian Soldiers
According to reports, ISIL released a video of the radical Sunni terrorist group beheading a Kurdish peshmerga fighter as a warning to Kurds in Iraq. From the Times of India:
The video, entitled "A Message in Blood", was posted online hours after another video purporting to show the mass execution of up to 250 Syrian soldiers in the desert.
In the first video, over a dozen Kurdish fighters are said to be paraded in front of the camera before three of them make an appeal to their government to stop working with the Americans. As the Guardian reported:
Three of the men ask Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani "and the Kurdish government to end their relationship with the US … military intervention in northern Iraq," the SITE Intelligence Group monitoring service said.
One of the fighters is then beheaded in front of a mosque. As Sebastian Usher of BBC explained:
The beheading of one of the Kurdish hostages is shown filmed from two angles - both to add extra documentary proof and to make it a slicker production. But the backdrop this time is not made as neutral as possible. Instead, the main mosque in Mosul looms behind - a provocation, trying to show that IS control of the city is assured.
The Daily Mail adds: "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."
Kurdish fighters, with the aid of American airstrikes, have been successful in repelling the advance of ISIL, dislodging the group from its recent hold over the highly strategic Mosul Dam. ISIL still remains in control of Mosul, which is Iraq's second-largest city.
RELATED: The Ebola Outbreak Is Only Getting Worse
The video comes just over a week after the grisly beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIL caused an international uproar. On Wednesday, Shirley Sotloff, the mother of one of the remaining American captives being held by ISIL, released a videotaped plea to ISIL leader and self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi begging for her son's release.
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/08/isil-releases-video-of-another-beheading-mass-execution-of-syrian-soldiers/379359/
Read more from The Wire
• Vladimir Putin Calls for Release of Ukrainian Soldiers He Helped Capture
