The Islamic State claimed this week it had beheaded four captive soldiers from the Kurdish Peshmerga at the site of the October 22 raid by American and Kurdish forces. On Friday, it released video proof.
The raid on an ISIS prison near the Iraqi town of Hawija freed some 70 prisoners and killed or captured a number of ISIS militants. American Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler lost his life during the operation.
“Islamic State militants have killed four Peshmerga members by beheading at the site of the US Special Forces operation in cooperation with the Kurdistan government in Hawija one week ago,” read a statement given to a pro-ISIS blog, as translated by Rudaw.
The group released a fifteen-minute video on Friday showing the beheadings, as well as interviews with alleged witnesses of the U.S.-Kurdish attack on the prison. It also features an English-language address by a masked jihadi to President Obama. “Obama, you have learned a new lesson,” the man warns, in an American-sounding accent. “Six of the soldiers of the caliphate faced 400 of your children; they killed and injured them by Allah’s grace.”
The full video can be viewed here (warning: graphic images).
The anonymous source for the Rudaw statement claimed ISIS has more peshmerga prisoners, but has not decided what to do with them.
A previous beheading of three Peshmerga captives in March was featured in an elaborately-produced ISIS video.
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