Beheading video
A beheading video is a type of propaganda video in which hostages are graphically decapitated.[1]
Contents
History
The videos were popularized in 2004 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a radical Islamic militant.
The first beheading (not counting Daniel Pearl in 2002) apparently occurred twelve days after the first major television reports on torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib on April 28, 2004.[2]
The videos caused controversy among Islamic scholars, some of whom denounced them as against Islamic law; Al-Qaeda did not approve and Osama bin Laden considered them poor public relations. Regardless, they became popular with certain Islamic terrorist groups, such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[3]
The beheadings shown in these videos are usually not performed in a "classical" method – decapitating a victim quickly with a blow from a sword or axe – but by the relatively slow and tortuous process of slicing and sawing the victim's neck, while still alive, with a knife.[4]
Early videos were grainy and unsophisticated, but, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, have been "growing in sophistication, using animated graphics and editing techniques apparently aimed at embellishing the audio to make a victim's final moments seem more disturbing".[5] These videos are often uploaded to the World Wide Web by terrorists, then discussed and distributed by web-based outlets,[6] such as blogs, shock sites, and traditional journalistic media. After a beheading video by a Mexican drug cartel spread virally on Facebook, the Family Online Safety Institute petitioned to have it removed.[7] Initially, Facebook refused to remove the video,[8] then did so,[9] and subsequently clarified their policies, stating that beheading videos would only be allowed if posted in a manner intended for its users to "condemn" the acts.[10]
Writing in The Atlantic, Simon Cottee drew a comparison between jihadist videos and gonzo pornography.[11]
Videos released
pre-2004
- Daniel Pearl, U.S. citizen, beheaded February 1, 2002, in Pakistan by al-Qaeda jihadists[12][13]
2004
- Nick Berg, U.S. citizen, beheaded May 7, 2004, in Iraq by Muntada al-Ansar jihadists[14]
- Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr., U.S. citizen, beheaded in June 2004 in Saudi Arabia by al-Qaeda jihadists[15]
- Kim Sun-il, South Korean citizen, beheaded in June 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[16][17]
- Georgi Lazov, Bulgarian citizen, beheaded in July 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[18][19]
- Mohammed Mutawalli Egyptian citizen, beheaded in August 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[20]
- One Nepali citizen, beheaded in August 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[21]
- Eugene Armstrong, U.S. citizen, beheaded in September 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[22][23]
- Jack Hensley, U.S. citizen, beheaded in September 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[23][24]
- Kenneth Bigley, British citizen, beheaded in October 7, 2004 in Iraq by jihadists of Tawhid and Jihad[25]
- Shosei Koda, Japanese citizen, beheaded in October 29, 2004, in Iraq by jihadists of al-Qaeda in Iraq[26][27]
2005–2013
- Piotr Stańczak, Polish citizen, beheaded in February 7, 2009, in Pakistan by Tehreek-e-Taliban jihadists[28][29]
2014
- James Foley, U.S. citizen, beheaded August 19, 2014, south of Raqqah, Syria by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadists[30][31]
- Steven Sotloff, U.S. citizen, beheaded in August 2014, south of Raqqah, Syria by ISIL jihadists[32]
- David Cawthorne Haines, U.K. citizen, beheaded in September 2014 in Syria by ISIL jihadists[33]
- Hervé Gourdel, French citizen, beheaded in September 2014, east of Algiers, Algeria by Jund al-Khilafah jihadists supporting ISIL.[34]
- Alan Henning, U.K. citizen, beheaded in October 2014, in Syria by ISIL jihadists[35]
- Peter Kassig, U.S, citizen beheaded in November 2014, in Dabiq, Aleppo, Syria by ISIL jihadists[36]
- Eighteen Syrian soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army, beheaded in November 2014, in Dabiq, Aleppo, Syria by ISIL jihadists[37][38]
2015
- Haruna Yukawa, Japanese citizen, beheaded in January 2015 by ISIL jihadists.[39]
- Kenji Goto, Japanese citizen, beheaded in January 2015 near Raqqa, Syria, by ISIL jihadists.[40]
- Twenty–one Egyptian Coptic Christians, beheaded in February 2015 near Tripoli, Libya, by ISIL jihadists[41][42][43]
- Twenty–eight Ethiopian Christians, beheaded in Libya in April 2015 by ISIL jihadists[44]
- A video (article published July 2015) shows a boy executing a Syrian soldier using a knife, while within Palmyra.[45]
- Four Kurdish Pershmerga members, beheaded in Iraq in October 2015 by ISIL jihadists[46]
Hoax
A hoax beheading video filmed by Benjamin Vanderford, Robert Martin, and Laurie Kirchner in 2004 received wide attention by the American press.[47] The video used Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad's logo, but not the group's flag.[48] It was originally filmed for Vanderford's local election campaign.[49] He was seeking Matt Gonzalez's seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.[50] Vanderford's second intention was to point out how uncritically the mainstream media would accept an anonymous video.[51] The Islamic Global Media Center claimed to have made the video, but removed it from their website after the hoax was discovered.[52] The video also appeared on other militant websites and was broadcast on Arabic television.[53][54]
See also
- ISIL beheading incidents
- Beheading in Islamism
- Martyrdom video
- Snuff film
- Yevgeny Rodionov
- The Beatles, terrorist cell of the Islamic State that made public a number of beheading videos
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.. Miles' claim matches the list in this article if we ignore the beheading of Daniel Pearl almost 27 months earlier in Pakistan. From at last some perspectives, it seems reasonable to classify the Pearl beheading as separate from the 10 beheadings in the 6 months following Abu Ghraib abuses entered the international consciousness. The match isn't perfect, because to get eleven beheadings after Abu Ghraib and before Miles' book appeared, we would either need an event not included in this article or we would need to include the beheading of Piotr Stańczak in Pakistan just over 4 years later. Nevertheless, the record seems largely to confirm Miles' suggestion of vengeance as a motive. He continues, “Pursuing justice differs from being consumed by revenge. The former proceeds from crime to investigation, to trial, to punishment, and then to closure. Vengeance is a whirlwind, where atrocity justifies revenge, and revenge becomes an atrocity.”
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- ↑ S. Webb - article and stills from video published by The Mirror 17th July 2015, Access-date 2015-11-27
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External links
- "Ben Vanderford Hoax Video" - Spike TV
- Jones, Ronald H. "Terrorist Beheadings: Cultural and Strategic Implications." Hosted at Air University
