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Islamic State, February 19, 2015

Hundreds of Savage ISIS Supporters Swarm Over Syrian Prisoners

Original source

Daily Mail

A sickening new video has emerged showing hundreds of savage supporters of the Islamic State kicking, punching and stamping three terrified Syrian soldiers to death before dragging their bloodied corpses through the streets chained to the back of motorcycles.

The barbaric footage is believed to have been filmed in the terror group's de facto capital Raqqa and bears all the chilling hallmarks of ISIS' professionally produced and edited propaganda films.

The gruesome killing of three Syrian soldiers is just the latest in a long line of horrific filmed murders released by the Sunni Islamists since last summer's self-declaration of a caliphate in the vast areas of Syria and Iraq they control through a campaign of rape, massacre and brutal oppression.

ISIS' latest shocking murder video begins by showing hundreds of baying, bloodthirsty supporters of the terror group gathering in central Raqqa where a bearded cleric is seen breathlessly reading out charges against three Syrian soldiers dressed in military fatigues.

Laughing children are seen clambering on walls and on to the shoulders of their grinning fathers to get a better view of proceedings, while a large group of niqab-wearing women gather nearby.

The three prisoners are seen on their knees in the centre of a circle of the militants, who link arms to hold back the throng of young men intent on taking part in the savage triple murder.

The footage is edited so the cleric's feverish Arabic ranting reverberates and echoes as the crowd of young, T-shirt and baseball cap-wearing supporters push and shove to get closer to the victims.

Seconds later the crowd is unleashed on the men, surging forward and raining down kicks, punches and beatings with whatever objects are close at hand. So dense is the crowd desperate to take part in the brutal killings, that those on the periphery are more than a dozen rows back from the victims.

A capella religious singing and chanting - known as nasheeds - soundtracks the barbaric scene.

After showing the bloodthirsty crowd let loose on the men, the footage cuts to shots of their beaten and bloodied corpses being tied to the back of motorbikes.

In an act of shocking brutality, the bodies are then seen being dragged through the centre of Raqqa while cheering militants follow close behind in speeding 4x4s - a convoy of death, honking horns in support of the terror group's latest blood-soaked atrocity.

The heavily armed men riding the motorbikes are seen grinning and raising their index fingers in the air in a sign of religious devotion completely at odds with the sight of a chained and bloodied corpse bouncing along the road behind their vehicles.

The gruesome footage emerged as Syrian rebels captured another 32 soldiers and pro-government gunmen near the northern city of Aleppo, according to activists.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Aleppo-based activist Ahmad Hamed said the troops were seized in the village of Ratyan after it was retaken by the rebels yesterday.

The Observatory and Mr Hamed say intense clashes are taking outside a third village, Bashkoy, which was also taken by the government two days ago. The fighting comes as UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is trying to broker a truce for the war-ravaged Aleppo, Syria's largest city. More than 120,000 fighters supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in the country's civil war since it began in 2011, the Observatory reported in December.

They said some 11,000 members of government forces and loyalist militias had been killed in the five months since Assad delivered an inauguration speech for a third presidential term.

In a breakdown of the casualties, the group said some 5,631 armed forces members have been killed in violence including shelling, gunfights, aircraft crashes, suicide attacks, snipers, executions and car bombs since the speech.

Another 4,492 fighters from loyalist militias had been killed, as well as 735 fighters of Arab, Asian and Iranian origin, and 91 from the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, the monitoring group said.