ICC Note: On Monday March 2, 2015, radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram released a video purportedly showing the beheadings of two men. In the video, two men who are referred to as spies have their arms tied behind them and are kneeling before the camera before the gruesome acts is committed. At the end of the video, a warning is issued stating that a similar result awaits anyone captured who is in supporting the Nigerian government and their actions against the group. This video supports the growing notion that Boko Haram’s actions within recent months appear to be mimicking the style of ISIS.
By Aminu Abubakar
03/02/2015 Nigeria (CNN) – Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group already blamed for numerous horrific attacks in West Africa, posted a graphic video online Monday showing the apparent beheadings of two men who the group said were suspected spies.
The six-minute video shows two men with their arms tied to their backs. They are made to face the camera on their knees, with another man towering over one of them brandishing a knife.
The knife-wielding man reaches toward the throat of one of the kneeling men, then the video switches scenes to show what appear to be the bloody severed heads of the two men placed on their headless bodies.
The SITE Intelligence group, which monitors extremist activities, released a translated transcript from the video, including what SITE called an “interrogation” of one of the two men. The man identifies himself as a farmer from the Nigerian town of Baga. He says he was told by a policeman that if he provided information about “the residents who live in here … I will become rich and never go back to be a farmer again.”
The apparent beheadings then follow on the video. SITE said the video, which included Arabic, English and French subtitles, was posted online via Twitter and “borrows certain elements from productions” of beheadings by ISIS.
The video was posted by the media division of Boko Haram, SITE said.
Violent Beheading Videos
Although this is the first purported beheading video Boko Haram posted online. the group has previously issued more detailed and extremely violent beheading videos directly to journalists through intermediaries. Unlike the video posted Monday, previous ones have shown the actual decapitations.
