ISIS Video Shows English-Speaking Child Beheading Prisoner, Talks Apocalyptic Showdown Against the West
The Islamic State has released a new chilling execution video showing an indoctrinated child jihadi declaring in English that IS will meet its enemies in the Syrian town that fighters believe the final apocalyptic battle against the West will be fought before going on to behead a defenseless prisoner.
According to a clip of the 17-minute video published by the Daily Mail, the child, who looks to be as young as 10 years old and is dressed in a gray tunic, leads an adult prisoner dressed in an orange jumpsuit with his hands tied behind his back through a wooded area before forcing him to kneel down in front of him.
The boy then stands behind the prisoner and points his knife to the camera and issues a threat to the United States and IS' other Western nations.
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"Oh America, these are the soldiers you armed and you spent money on to fight the Shariah of Islam," the boy says in broken English that is somewhat hard to comprehend. "'We will destroy them as we destroyed the [inaudible] of Iraq. ... You can't escape."
As the film is believed to have been filmed in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the boy promises in the footage that IS will meet its enemies "on the hills of Dabiq," the small Syrian town that IS believes will be where the final apocalyptic showdown will occur between Muslims and crusading Christians.
After the boy finishes issuing his extremist threats, he forces the prisoner to the ground and then proceeds to use his sharpened blade to cut off the man's head.
Mail Online reports that the prisoner was thought to be fighting for an IS opposition militia coalition called the Levant Front rebel faction. In the beginning of the video, the prisoner was forced to give an interview before he was led to the wooded area and decapitated.
Although the Daily Mail believes that the boy could possibly be the son of Abu Darda, a London-born IS fighter who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Aleppo in 2014, there has been no confirmation made of the boy's identity.
The beheading video comes as IS has frequently featured children in its publicized execution videos.
Just last month, IS used a child, believed to be 4-year-old Isa Dare who comes from a South London Christian family, in a video where a group of prisoners were executed. In the video, the boy stated that "we will kill the kuffar [infidels] over there," as he pointed to the group of hostages.
In December, an IS video called "To the Sons of Jews" featured six child soldiers completing a training obstacle course in which they were instructed by an IS trainer to kill six spies that were hidden throughout the course. Five of the spies were shot, while one was beheaded.
Last July, IS released another video showing 25 boys who were believed to be in their preteen years executing 25 prisoners by shooting them at point-blank range in the back of the head inside a Roman amphitheater in Palmyra, Syria.
Last March, IS used a baby-faced executioner who was no older than 12, to execute an accused Israeli spy by shooting him the back of the head.
The United Nations published a report in mid-Januray that found that over 18,800 people have been killed in Iraq while over 3.2 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes since 2014, the year in which IS conquered large swaths of the Nineveh Plains. Additionally, 3,500 women and children are believed to still be captured as IS slaves.
