The Islamic State terrorist group has publicly executed a Syrian man for allegedly planting tracking devices for deadly regime air strikes before parading his body on a cross.
On Saturday, SITE Intelligence reported that the jihadist group posted footage of the accused being paraded before a crowd. The video then freezes when a fighter pulls his head back and holds a knife to his neck.
The reports that following the execution, which took place in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, the jihadists paraded the dead body on a cross. An estimated 190 insurgents had been killed in the air strikes that the man had aided, reports SITE.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS has executed 1,878 people in Syria over the past six months, including 120 of its own members.
The Associated Press reports that most of the people killed by the group were civilians, including 930 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe from eastern Syria. Four children and eight women were among those killed, the Observatory added. "They were executed by beheading, shooting or stoning" in the provinces of Deir Ezzor, al- Raqqa, al- Hasakah, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.
ISIS also murdered 120 of its own members for "exceeding the limits in religion." All but four of those killed were executed after being arresting during their attempt to go back to their homes, the group revealed.
The Observatory also reported that the overall number killed by the Islamic State is likely far higher than they have confirmed, as hundreds are missing still missing and detainees are being held inside the jihadist group jails
ISIS, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, has released graphic videos of violent executions of captured enemy fighters, activists and journalists.
It has also beheaded two American journalists, and one American and two British aid workers this year in an attempt to halt U.S.-led airstrikes, which have killed hundreds of ISIS fighters in Syria since September.
ISIS has overtaken large portions of Syria and Iraq in an attempt to establish a caliphate, or state ruled by Sharia law. The group targets religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis. The Iraqi city of Mosul has reportedly been emptied from its Christian population, which numbered over 60,000 before 2003. Believers have been faced with the choice of converting to Islam, paying a tax or being killed for their faith.
However, U.S. officials recently said that ISIS has been demoralized by losses it has suffered due to the airstrikes.
"It [ISIS] was presenting itself as an unstoppable movement," The Guardian quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying. "That kind of unstoppable momentum has been blunted, to say the least. We have killed over 1,000 of their fighters, particularly in Kobani [city in Syria], and that gets to Raqqa [also in Syria] because they wanted to take Kobani and had been making the biggest flag they had ever made and they were going to put it up there because to them this is a war of flags."
