Inspired by ISIS, Kids in Yemen Set Fire to Ten-Year-Old Boy in Cage

Gulf News tells a story of ISIS’ viral evil spreading into Yemen, which was hardly suffering from a shortage of villainy: “Inspired by the video of Daesh (Islamic State/ISIS) burning to death the Jordanian pilot Muath Al Kasaesbeh, a group of boys set about re-enacting the atrocity in their Al Dahthath village in Yemen’s northern province of Ibb.”

The group of a half-dozen youths trapped a ten-year-old boy in a wooden cage, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire.  They even re-enacted the Islamic State leaders passing judgment on the Jordanian pilot and ordering his immolation.  Luckily, the boy’s screams were heard in time, and he was rescued by villagers.  He went to the hospital for treatment of the burns on one of his legs.

As Gulf News observes, the village is desperately poor and has unreliable electricity, but the people were still able to get the ISIS propaganda video of Kaseasbeh’s brutal execution on their mobile phones.

This is not the first time young fans of the Islamic State in Yemen have tried re-enacting the horrors of the terror state they admire.  The UK Daily Mail recalls a previous instance weeks ago in which Yemeni boys used a cell phone to film themselves re-enacting the beachfront beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya, using sticks to simulate the knives ISIS prefers for its decapitations.  “Lined up on the beach, the young boys are forced to their knees and stare down at the sand whilst they await their mock execution,” writes the Daily Mail.  “Each boy appears deep in character, honed from studying the terror group’s depraved videos.”  Evidently, the mock victims in this particular bit of live role-playing were not injured.

Not only are kids in Yemen getting with the ISIS swing; the Daily Mail throws in a sidebar about an Egyptian couple who horrified their wedding guests by hiring actors to simulate jihadis hijacking their wedding and shoving them into a cage similar to the one in which Lt. Kaseasbeh was killed. It is not clear if the groom meant this little stunt as sincere homage to ISIS or a joke, but it doesn’t seem to have elicited much laughter in either case.