ISIS Kids Execute Prisoners on Tape
ISIS released a new video Friday showing children of its foreign soldiers shooting a group of prisoners.
The
terror group said the executed men were members of the YPG, a Syrian
Kurdish force that is supported by the United States and has been one of
the most effective armies fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
ISIS
is known for its grisly videos of beheadings and other sadistic
killings. But the new video is particularly grisly and horrific even by
ISIS’ cruel standards.
It shows five boys, some of them visibly frightened, shoot kneeling prisoners in the backs of their heads.
One boy speaks to the camera while the others look on silently.
The
SITE intelligence group, which analyzes the terror group’s propaganda,
said the boys are British, Egyptian, Kurdish, Tunisian, and Uzbek
citizens. Their parents came to fight with ISIS and apparently brought
their kids along.
It’s not clear when the video
was made. However, it was released at a particularly important moment
in the United States’ war against ISIS, which has been making progress
as a combination of air and ground strikes takes back territory from the
group.
This week, Turkish air and ground forces pounded ISIS positions in northern Syria along the Turkish border.
U.S.
officials have long been urging Turkey to get into the fight, and
Turkish intervention helped to evict ISIS from the Syrian town of
Jarabulus.
Vice President Joseph Biden visited
Turkey this week and declared that the YPG fighters, who have proven so
effective, must withdraw to a position east of the Euphrates River.
That was seen as a move to placate Turkey, which views the YPG as a terrorist group and an existential threat.
Turkey
worries that the Kurds could form an autonomous zone in northern Syria.
Pulling back east of the river would help ensure that doesn’t happen.
And Biden warned that if the Kurds didn’t withdraw, the U.S. would pull the plug on its support.
Against this political backdrop, the new ISIS video can be seen as a message to the Kurdish forces.
It may also be an attempt to show that ISIS still enjoys support from a broad range of foreign fighters.
The
truth, though, is that officials say the flow of foreigners into
ISIS-controlled areas has been dramatically reduced, thanks in part to
Turkey cracking down on the flow of militants across its borders.
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