In what should be a time of happiness when Muslims mark the end of Ramadan, Islamist militants in Iraq celebrated Eid by releasing a video showing scenes of them carrying out genocide.
The slickly produced footage shows prisoners being rounded up and summarily executed, suicide bombers boasting before blowing up buildings and Iraqis being gunned down in drive-by shootings.
In one of the most shocking passages, terrified prisoners are piled into the back of trucks, where they hold each other and huddle in fear before driven off to their deaths.
The 36-minute film then cuts to dozens of prisoners lying face down on the ground, hands bound behind their backs, waiting to be executed.
Shocking: A sick video reportedly produced by
Islamic group ISIS shows Iraqi prisoners, including what appear to be
children, piled onto trucks before being driven off for execution
Huddling in fear: With no room to move, the prisoners cower in terror as they are rounded up by ISIS
None of the men look older than 40 years old, one of them wears an Arsenal shirt, clearly visible with midfielder Mesut Ozil’s name and number on the back.
Most of the men are apparently Iraqi army deserters.
Their jeans, hastily put on to avoid identification, have been pulled down to reveal their khaki desert fatigues.
One group of about 50 prisoners are seen being told to march with their hands behind their heads and lie down in two overlapping lines on the sand.
The executions are believed to have taken place in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
The prisoners, believed to be Shi'ite Muslims, are then systematically executed by a small band of jihadists, thought to be Sunnis.
It is understood the prisoners are referred to in the video description as rafidas, a derogatory term used by some Sunnis to describe Shi'ites who they believe have rejected Islamic authority.
Ruthless: In another clip, the prisoners are ordered off the truck and marched towards the execution site
Sickening end: AWith the jihadi flag in the foreground, the Iraqis are frogmarched to their deaths
Brutal: Lying face down in the dirt, the prisoners are systemically executed by a small band of jihadists
In other scenes, this latest video shows hundreds of men sitting on the ground with their hands bound, waiting to be shot.
Other prisoners are shown being hit with rifle butts and shoes whilst they march blindfolded.
Unable to see, they hold the shoulder of the man in front. The chain of men is led down some stairs to a small jetty, covered in blood.
One by one, they are taken by one of the jihadists to the edge of the jetty, where they are shot in the head with a pistol and their body tossed into the water.
The despicable video was quickly removed by You Tube, although it later re-emerged via social media.
One analyst likened the scenes to the killing fields of Cambodia, under the communist Khymer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
Deluded: The video also features a North African
jihadist named Abu Ayyub al-Maghribi (above) talking about his dreams
of becoming a martyr before climbing into an armoured car packed with
explosives
The slickly produced video is edited to highlight the jihadist's vehicle driving down a street under heavy fire
Terrorist: Al-Maghribi drives towards a large concrete building, which is shown in a slow motion action replay
Dreams of being a martyr: Al-Maghribi detonates the armoured car when he reaches the base of the building
The video also shows footage of battles and Isis rallies as well as the destruction of holy sites in Iraq.
The slickly made video is extremely graphic, repeatedly showing the dead bodies of the Iraqi army with no signs of humility.
It also includes night vision footage of battles as well as close up action replays of jihadists firing rocket-propelled grenades in a battle to take an Iraqi checkpoint.
In between the fighting scenes, the film shows a North African jihadist with the non de guerre Abu Ayyub al-Maghribi talking about his dreams of becoming a martyr.
It then shows him climbing into an armoured personnel carrier and driving down a street under heavy gunfire.
Marched to their deaths: A chain of men is led down stairs to a small jetty, where they will be executed
He proceeds to detonate the vehicle near a large concrete building, which is then shown in a slow motion action replay.
In others, Iraqi men are killed in what appear to be drive-by shootings.
The scenes are then edited to show the sights from a sniper's rifle over the victim before they are gunned down.
ISIS has become known for imposing strict Sharia law, mass summary executions and growing numbers of foreign fighters in its ranks.
Shocking brutality: In other scenes, the film shows hundreds of men with their hands bound, waiting to be shot or lying dead
Targeted: The video also shows Iraqis being
killed in what appear to be drive-by shootings. Here, the video is
edited to show the victim in the sights of a sniper's rifle as he is
gunned down
In late June, the group announced it had changed its name to the Islamic State and had formed a caliphate across Syria and Iraq, under the leadership of its caliph, Ibrahim Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Many Iraqi Christians have fled the Isis-held city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, following threats of execution if they did not convert to Islam.
Isis has made considerable advancements in north-eastern Syria and Iraq, recently seizing a strategic military base near the ISIS stronghold city of Raqqa.
The Sunni extremists celebrated their victory over the 17th division of the Syrian national army by beheading many of their prisoners and parading their severed heads around Raqqa.
ISIS also briefly captured the Al-Shaar gas field in Homs province, killing at least 200 Syrian army soldiers before it was recaptured yesterday by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
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