A Syrian beheading video is causing worldwide outrage after a young Palestinian boy was taunted and then brutally murdered by rebel fighters in an executing caught on film and shared online.
The graphic video emerged online early this week and has been making the rounds on social media, showing a group of fighters surrounding the young boy, who is bloodied and dazed and sitting in the bed of a pickup truck. The men claim that the boy is a pro-government fighter from Palestine who was caught spying on the rebel group, the BBC reported.
One of the rebel fighters holds the boy — who is as young as 10 years old — by the hair and taunts him as the rebels narrate the events for a camera. The video later shows the Syrian rebels holding the boy down and beheading him.
The Syrian beheading video came from an area north of Aleppo, which has seen heavy fighting, the BBC report noted.
“The area is the location of the unofficial Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El Tal , which was home to some 7,000 people before they were displaced by armed groups in 2013.
“Pro-government forces have been attempting to capture Handarat in recent weeks, as part of an offensive that has seen the last remaining road out of rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo cut, trapping an estimated 300,000 people living there.”
The Syrian beheading video has made the rounds quickly since reportedly being uploaded to the internet on Tuesday morning. A number of international media outlets have covered the story and included the video, most using an edited and censored version that does not show the beheading itself.
[WARNING: The tweet below contain video of the men taunting the young boy. While it does not show the beheading itself or the aftermath, the scenes may still be disturbing to some viewers.]
Video footage shows Turkmen jihadis of Nureddin Al Zangi brigade (FSA) backed by #Turkey behead a child in #Syria . pic.twitter.com/7vSYnIYrvf
— curdistani (@curdistani) July 19, 2016
The exact circumstances behind the Syrian beheading video are not entirely clear, but some reports claimed that the bandages and IV seen on the boy prior to his murder were actually administered by the rebels in an effort to keep the boy alive long enough to be executed.
US-backed Syrian rebels behead boy because he was spying for pro-Assad forces https://t.co/MQD3ULAmG3 pic.twitter.com/dORbdCJyPS
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 19, 2016
As the video spread around the internet, outrage grew both among human rights groups and individuals who condemned the video.
There was also outrage that the rebel group in question, identified as Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, is one that had been supported by the United States.
“The United States supplied the group with money and BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles during its war against ISIS and the government,” the Daily Mail reported.
The video of the Palestinian boy being beheaded in Syria comes just a few weeks after another video from the terrorist group ISIS showed a group of alleged Syrian spies being beheaded. The highly produced, 21-minute video showed five men accused of being part of the New Syrian Army rebel faction accused of spies and executed, Heavy.com noted.
As the Christian Post reported, the beheading video also had a note of the dramatic that ISIS has been known for in its propaganda videos.
“In the video, the men were each forced to reenact their crimes against IS in cinematic scenes that imitate criminal reenactments seen in Western television crime dramas.
“One of the scenes shows two of the men riding on a motorcycle in an IS-controlled town believed to be near the Iraqi-Syrian border. One of the accused men is seen pressing on some kind of remote device that the video has viewers believe enabled him to call in a U.S.-coalition led airstrike on the town.”
By contrast, the video showing Syrian rebels beheading the young Palestinian boy appeared to be hastily filmed and uploaded to the internet quickly.
[Image via Twitter]