Graphic Execution Video Shows ISIS Drowning, Immolating Prisoners
This morning, ISIS released a gruesome new video showing the execution of 16 prisoners. Five of the prisoners were filmed as they slowly drowned inside a metal cage while four others were blown up by an RPG as they were handcuffed inside a car. Another seven were killed by explosives that an ISIS member had strapped around their necks.
Like several of ISIS’s other execution videos, the clip, hosted online here, begins by showing the rubble of buildings destroyed during coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State. The prisoners are then shown “confessing” before the video cuts to four being led to car stationed in the desert. Once the four are strapped in, a masked ISIS member fires an RPG into the car. The prisoners are shown burning to death inside.
Another series of apparent “confessions” follows before five prisoners are shown in a metal cage being lowered into a pool. Cameras record from multiple angles as the prisoners drown, and a shot of the cage being removed from the pool shows all five dead, with foam pouring from one man’s mouth.
The final scene shows seven men on their knees as an ISIS member connects their necks with rope laced with explosive. An explosion follows, and the film repeatedly rewinds as most of their heads are severed. The film ends with gruesome close ups of the dead men’s bodies.
SITE reports that the video was filmed by Ninawa division of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, which in recent weeks has been bombarded by coalition airstrikes. The identities of the victims, who ISIS claims worked as spies for the Iraqi government, is unknown. Over the past year, ISIS has published videos showing the brutal executions of a Jordanian pilot, two Japanese hostages, three Americans, a British aid worker, and dozens of Ethiopian Christians.
