Isis has used a child executioner in a sickening new propaganda video showing a young boy beheading a commander of the Syrian regime's army near the ancient city of Palmyra, which the terror group captured in May. It's the first time the group have used a child to execute someone in so brutal a fashion.
The group have used filmed beheadings to boost and spread their terror brand across the world, with western hostages, such as US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid worker Alan Henning and American aid worker Peter Kassig killed by a black-clad British executioner known as 'Jihadi John' in a series of separate videos.
In the latest video, widely shared by Isis sympathisers on social media platforms, a child who looks around 11-years-old, dressed in camouflage and a black head cover, stands over the Syrian officer who has been forced to lie on his front before pulling his head by the hair and slitting his throat with a small knife.
The boy is then seen lifting the severed head of his victim before placing it on his back, while an adult Isis member watches on. After the killing, the older militant addresses the camera, threatening to conquer the cities of Rome and Jerusalem.
"Our goal is not only Palmyra or Homs or Damascus, rather our goal is to conquer Bayt al- Maqdes [Jerusalem] and Rome, God willing," he says, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The footage is reported to have been filmed at the Western Hir Palace in Homs Province after the Syrian commander was captured at an army checkpoint. The commander was reportedly a leader for Bashar al-Assad's forces in Palmyra, where Isis continue to threaten ancient shrines and centuries-old artefacts.
While Isis has used child executioners before, with a young boy shooting dead an alleged Israeli spy at point-blank range in March, they have never tasked one of their 'Cubs of the Caliphate' with the beheading of a hostage. In January, two children were shown by the group to execute two alleged Russian spies.
In another horrific video, released earlier this month, the terror group show 25 child executioners in Palmyra shooting dead Syrian regime soldiers in a Roman amphitheatre. The ancient town is home to approximately 50,000 residents and has remained under government control since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. The town was designated a Unesco heritage site in 1980.
Isis-affiliated accounts have previously shared footage of an Isis training camp for children, where they are shown training for combat, being beaten by their instructor and taught how to shoot. The video, entitled Blood of Jihad 2, also shows the children's instructor breaking sticks over their heads.
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