Sickening footage appears to show Islamic State militants parading
250 captured soldiers through the desert in their underwear before they
are killed and their bodies piled on the bare earth.
An Islamic
State fighter said the men were from the Syrian government's Tabqa air
base which extremists seized on Sunday - handing them warplanes,
helicopters, tanks, artillery and ammunition.
The video, too
graphic to be published in full, first shows dozens of men being marched
through the desert and made to chant in Arabic wearing only their
underwear.
It then fades to black and resumes on an image of a pile of bloodied bodies stacked on top of one another.
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WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
emerged of Islamic State fighters marching more than 200 soldiers across
the desert to their deaths in only their underwear after capturing
Syria's Tabqa air base
the horrific footage progresses it pans slowly across a vast line of
men who appear to be dead, and whose bodies have been laid out one by
one.
The line forms a slow crescent across the desert, seemingly
stretching to the horizon as militants stand beside it. Eventually,
after more than a minute, the cameraman reaches the end of the line.
At
least 150 bodies are visible in the shaky video. Its description on
Youtube said it showed the execution of Army officers and Nusayri
people, a significant minority of Shia Muslims in Syria.
A
caption to another version of the video said: 'The 250 shabeeha taken
captive by the Islamic State from Tabqa in Raqqa have been executed,'
referring to the Islamist name for soldiers loyal to President Bashar
al-Assad.
Talking to Reuters via the Internet, an Islamic State fighter in Raqqa added: 'Yes we have executed them all.'
The
photos and reported mass killing underscored how the group uses images
of violence as much as violence itself to terrorise its opponents, as
it sweeps further into Syria and Iraq.
Previous
video footage has suggested the Islamic State fighters are widening
their arsenal, with a promotional film showing reconnaissance footage of
an army base which appears to have been shot from a drone.
The extremists have also released glossy magazines in English featuring mutilated bodies to promote their cause in the West.
The
Home Secretary has sounded fresh warnings over the radicalisation of
young Brits, with authorities fearing around 500 have joined an array of
jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria.
Islamic State won a week-long
battle on Sunday to capture the Taqba base, which is 25 miles from their
Syrian stronghold in Raqqa.
There they have declared a
self-styled caliphate, a Sunni regime ordering its subjects to operate
under an extreme interpretation of Sharia law.
It has opened up
three fronts in the fighting in Syria, which is already home to a bloody
and long-running civil war between President Assad's forces and
anti-government rebels.
Today CNN claimed the militants in Iraq
have also been burning oil wells near the town of Zummar, which is
crucial because it is near a road which links Mosul to the Syrian
border.
The network suggested fighters are attempting to 'cover their tracks' as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters draw closer.
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