The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants fighting in Iraq and Syria claimed in a video posted online on Sunday that they beheaded several Syrian hostages and an American.
The video came two days after a United Nations panel investigating war crimes in Syria said the extremist group has been receiving “external support” in the past four years.
In a highly choreographed sequence earlier in the video, jihadists marched at least 18 hostages, said to be pilots and officers from the Syrian Arab Army, past a wooden box of long black military knives, each taking one as they passed, then forced them to kneel in a line and simultaneously decapitated them.
In the video, which is the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by ISIS, the extremist group announced the beheading of Peter Kassig and issued warnings to the US President Barack Obama, Britain and others including Shia Muslims.