Beheading by Salafi jihadist groups

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Extremist Salafi jihadist groups such as ISIS and Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad have used beheading as a method of killing captives. Since 2002, ISIS have circulated beheading videos as a form of terror and propaganda. [1] [2] Their actions have been condemned by militant and other terrorist groups, as well as by mainstream Islamic scholars and organizations.

Contents

History

Modern instances of beheadings by Salafi jihadist groups date at least to the early 1990s.

1990s

At the beginning of the Bosnian War (1992–95), anywhere from 500 to 6,000 foreign volunteers (mostly from the Gulf States, the Levant, and South Asia) travelled to Bosnia (with the support of the Croatian government at the time) to volunteer for jihad and fight alongside the Bosniaks that were being heavily persecuted against. Most came into Bosnia and Herzegovina under the guise of being volunteer aid workers and freelance journalists, complete with fake identification cards and passports. When they arrived in Bosnia, they formed a volunteer brigade called the El-Mudžahid along with some local Bosniak volunteers, and were affiliated with the 3rd Corps (although they weren't officially absorbed into the Bosnian Army, and also had quite a bit of internal conflict and strife amongst the two organizations due to differing views on Islam, culture, and politics). The El-Mudžahid were notorious for their brutal tactics and ferocious fighting on the battlefield, along with how they treated their POW's. There were several cases of decapitation that happened to POW's, along with being tortured severely before-hand. In the most famous case, there is an amateur video (along with a photo) taken of a foreign fighter decapitating and holding the severed head of a Serb POW up to the camera. Before the subsequent video was taken, 2 Serb POW's (Momir Mitrović and Predrag Knežević) were captured, subjected to severe beatings and had their hands and feet bound together for hours on end. After beating and torturing the prisoners for hours, the foreign fighter slit the throats of the two Serb POW's and then proceeded to decapitate them, to which after they held the head of one of the POW's up in "celebration". There also have been many other documented cases of decapitation happening at the hands of El-Mudžahid during the Bosnian War. [3]

In the First Chechen War (1994–96), the beheading of Yevgeny Rodionov, a Russian soldier who refused to convert to Islam, led some within the Russian Orthodox Church to venerate him as a martyr. [4]

In 1997, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria beheaded 80-200 villagers in Benthalia. [5] [6]

2000s

The 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl by Al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan drew international attention enhanced by the release of a beheading video. [7] Revulsion in the Muslim community led al Qaeda to abandon video beheadings. [8] Groups in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Tawhid and Jihad and later ISIL, continued the practice. [9] Since 2002, they have been mass circulating beheading videos as a form of terror and propaganda. [1] [2] One of al-Zarqawi's most publicized murders was that of American Nick Berg. [10]

Since 2004 insurgents in South Thailand began to sow fear in attacks where men and women of the local Buddhist minority were beheaded. [11] On 18 July 2005 two terrorists entered a teashop in South Thailand, shot Lek Pongpla, a Buddhist cloth vendor, beheaded him and left the head outside of the shop. [12] The founder of Bridges TV, a Muslim cable channel in originally based in Buffalo, NY that aimed to combat negative perceptions of Muslims that were allegedly dominating mainstream media coverage, beheaded his wife in 2009 in the offices of Bridges TV. [13]

2010s

In January 2015, a copy of an ISIL penal code surfaced describing the penalties it enforces in areas under its control, including beheadings. [14] Beheading videos have been frequently posted by ISIL members to social media. [15] [5] Several of the videoed beheadings were conducted by Mohammed Emwazi, whom the media had referred to as "Jihadi John" before his identification.

The beheadings received wide coverage around the world and attracted international condemnation. Political scientist Max Abrahms posited that ISIL may be using well-publicized beheadings as a means of differentiating itself from Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and identifying itself with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda member who beheaded Daniel Pearl. [8] Beheadings represent a small proportion of a larger total of people killed following capture by ISIL. [16]

2020s

In 2020 a teacher was murdered and beheaded in France, apparently for showing his students cartoons of Muhammad. [17] Similarly Kanhaiya Lal also beheaded by two Islamist on the name of Islam over Nupur Sharma's comments on Muhammad. [18]

Over fifty people were beheaded by Islamic terrorists in the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique in early November 2020. [19]

Condemnation by Muslims

Mainstream Islamic scholars and organizations around the world, as well as other organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have condemned the practice. [20] [21]

Academic perspectives

According to Peter R. Neumann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College London, viral beheading videos are intended, and are at least somewhat effective, as a recruiting tool for jihad among both Western and Middle Eastern youth. [22] [23] Other observers argue that while Al Qaeda initially used beheading as a publicity tool, it later decided that they caused Muslims to recoil from Islamism and that although ISIS/IS is enthusiastically deploying beheading as a tactic in 2014, it, too, may find that the tactic backfires. [24] Timothy R. Furnish, as assistant professor of Islamic History, contrasts the Saudi government executions, conforming to standards that minimize pain, with the non-state actors who have "chosen a slow, torturous sawing method to terrorize the Western audience." [25]

Impact on war coverage

Some analysts have argued that the beheadings of journalists and aid workers, along with other abductions and executions of independent observers in Syrian war zones, have forced international media to rely exclusively on reporting which is directly or indirectly influenced by rebel and opposition groups and in this way allowed the latter to dictate the coverage of events in areas under their control. [26] [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Qaeda</span> Pan-Islamic Sunni Jihadist terrorist organization (established 1988)

Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.

Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad</span> Jordanian/Iraqi Salafi jihadist militant group (1999–2004)

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Salafi jihadist militant group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters with a considerable Iraqi membership.

Takfiri is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate.

A beheading video is a video which depicts a live murder in which a hostage or victim is shown to be graphically decapitated, or the head is displayed in the aftermath. Such videos are typically distributed mostly through the Internet, and are often employed by groups seeking to instill shock or terror into a population. Although beheading has been a widely employed public execution method since the ancient Greeks and Romans, videos of this type only began to arise in 2002 with the beheading of Daniel Pearl and the growth of the Internet in the Information Age, which allowed groups to anonymously publish these videos for public consumption. 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 torturous process of slicing and sawing the victim's neck, while still alive, with a knife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jihadism</span> Islamist movements for jihad

Jihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West. It has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, who extensively campaigned against non-Muslim nations in the name of jihad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic State</span> Salafi jihadist militant Islamist group

The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist group and a former unrecognised quasi-state. Its origins were in the Jai'sh al-Taifa al-Mansurah organization founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004, which fought alongside al-Qaeda during the Iraqi insurgency. The group gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants successfully captured large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of the ongoing Syrian civil war. By the end of 2015, it ruled an area with an estimated population of twelve million people, where it enforced its extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salafi jihadism</span> Transnational Sunni Islamist religious-political ideology

Salafi jihadism, also known as revolutionary Salafism or jihadist Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim and (takfired) Muslim targets. The Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts is "in their most literal, traditional sense", which adherents claim will bring about the return to "true Islam".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Nusra Front</span> Jihadist organization in the Syrian Civil War (2012–2017)

Al-Nusra Front, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, was a Salafi jihadist organization fighting against Syrian Ba'athist government forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state in Syria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Islamic Media Front</span>

The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) is an Islamist propaganda organization that is associated with the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist groups. The GIMF is known by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "underground media" organization. The GIMF specializes in production of jihadist material for distribution. It is one of several organizations that jihadists use to spread information via the Internet, including the well-known As-Sahab. Their slogan that is used on their materials is "Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers." There is no indication who the leader of this organization is.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic State of Iraq</span> Militant Salafist jihadist group in Iraq (2006–2013)

The Islamic State of Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist militant organization that fought the forces of the U.S.-led coalition during the Iraqi insurgency. The organization aimed to overthrow the Iraqi federal government and establish an Islamic state in Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic State beheading incidents</span> Mostly 2014–2015 beheadings by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Beginning in 2014, a number of people from various countries were beheaded by the Islamic State (IS), a radical Sunni Islamist group operating in Iraq and Syria as well as elsewhere. In January 2014, a copy of an IS penal code surfaced describing the penalties it enforces in areas under its control, including multiple beheadings. Beheading videos have been frequently posted by IS members to social media. Several of the recorded beheadings were conducted by Mohammed Emwazi, whom the media referred to as "Jihadi John" before his identification. The beheadings received wide coverage around the world and attracted international condemnation. Political scientist Max Abrahms posited that IS may be using well-publicized beheadings as a means of differentiating itself from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and identifying itself with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda member who beheaded Daniel Pearl. The publicised beheadings represent a small proportion of a larger number of total people killed following capture by IS.

Decapitation was a standard method of capital punishment in pre-modern Islamic law. By the end of the 20th century, its use had been abandoned in most countries. Decapitation is still a legal method of execution in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Yemen. In Iran, beheading was last used in 2001 according to Amnesty International, but it is no longer in use. In recent decades, extremist Salafi jihadist groups have used beheading as a method of killing captives and terror tactic.

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Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, better known as Abu Ali al-Anbari, was the governor for territories held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. Considered the ISIL second-in-command, he was viewed as a potential successor of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavdrim Muhaxheri</span>

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The ideology of the Islamic State, sometimes called Islamic Statism, has been described as being a hybrid of Salafism, Salafi jihadism, Sunni Islamist fundamentalism, Wahhabism, and Qutbism. Through its official statement of beliefs originally released by its first leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2007 and subsequently updated since June 2014, the Islamic State defined its creed as "a middle way between the extremist Kharijites and the lax Murji'ites".

The origins of the Islamic State group can be traced back to three main organizations. Earliest of these was the "Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād" organization, founded by the Jihadist leader Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Jordan in 1999. The other two predecessor organizations emerged during the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation forces. These included the "Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah" group founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004 and the "Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah" group founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his associates in the same year.

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References

  1. 1 2 Sara Hussein and Rita Daou (3 September 2014). "Jihadists beheadings sow fear, prompt Muslim revulsion". Yahoo! News. Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  2. 1 2 James Watson, Anne Hill (2015). Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 325. ISBN   9781628921489.
  3. ↑ Archived 2023-03-30 at the Wayback Machine "Mujahideen Fighters ‘Cut off Bosnian Serb Soldiers’ Heads'", Balkan Insight, 21 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Archived 2019-07-27 at the Wayback Machine "Boy soldier who died for faith made 'saint'", The Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2004.
  5. 1 2 "Celso, Anthony N. "Jihadist Organizational Failure and Regeneration: the Transcendental Role of Takfiri Violence."" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-12-12. Retrieved 2015-03-04.
  6. ↑ Steven Mufson (4 July 2004). "A Brutal Act's Long History". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 7 September 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  7. ↑ "Online NewsHour Update: Pakistan Convicts Four Men in Pearl Murder". PBS. 15 July 2002. Archived from the original on 4 September 2017. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  8. 1 2 Taylor, Adam (21 August 2014). "From Daniel Pearl to James Foley: The modern tactic of Islamist beheadings". Chicago Tribune . Archived from the original on 14 September 2014. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  9. ↑ Ignatieff, Michael (November 14, 2004). "The Terrorist as Auteur". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 28, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2023– via NYTimes.com.
  10. ↑ "'Zarqawi' beheaded US man in Iraq". BBC News. 13 May 2004. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  11. ↑ "Reuters - Thai Buddhist beheaded, another shot in Muslim south". Reuters. 2009-06-15. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Beheadings Raise Tensions in Thailand". Archived from the original on 11 December 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
  13. ↑ "Beheading Moderate Islam". 26 February 2009. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  14. ↑ Saul, Heather (22 January 2015). "Isis publishes penal code listing amputation, crucifixion and stoning as punishments - and vows to vigilantly enforce it". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  15. ↑ "Staffer, Crisis, and Jake Hume. "Balance of Powers: Syria." (2014)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-29. Retrieved 2015-03-04.
  16. ↑ Cumming-Bruce, Nick (2 October 2014). "5,500 Iraqis Killed Since Islamic State Began Its Military Drive, U.N. Says". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
  17. ↑ "Suspect in teacher's beheading in France was Chechen teen". Associated Press News. Archived from the original on 2020-10-17. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  18. ↑ "Udaipur murder: Who was Kanhaiya Lal? Why was Kanhaiya Lal killed?". DNA India. Archived from the original on 2022-07-10. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
  19. ↑ "Militant Islamists 'behead more than 50' in Mozambique". Yahoo. 2018-08-26. Archived from the original on 2020-11-10. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  20. ↑ Alia Brahami (2010). Sibylle Scheipers (ed.). Terrorist Beheadings: Politics and Reciprocity. Vol. Prisoners in War. Oxford University Press. p. 551. ISBN   9780191610387.
  21. ↑ "Hezbollah, Hamas denounce beheadings". Associated Press/NBC News. 13 May 2004. Archived from the original on 6 March 2017. Retrieved 10 August 2016.
  22. ↑ Archived 2014-09-14 at the Wayback Machine From Daniel Pearl to James Foley: The modern tactic of Islamist beheadings, Adam Taylor, 21 August 2014, The Washington Post/Chicago Tribune.
  23. ↑ Archived 2019-07-27 at the Wayback Machine Islamic State steps up propaganda videos, beheading another captive, Videotaped atrocities in an attempt to spread fear are nothing new for IS. But it appears to be stepping up its propaganda as world powers start to engage in halting its spread, Dan Murphy, 29 August 2014, The Christian Science Monitor.
  24. ↑ Archived 2017-04-24 at the Wayback Machine Why Beheading Videos Are Back With ISIS, and Why They Went Away, Katie Zavadski, 21 August 2014, New York.
  25. ↑ Timothy R. Furnish (2005). "Beheading in the Name of Islam". Middle East Quarterly. 12 (2): 51–57.
  26. ↑ Thembisa Fakude (10 December 2014). "Arab World Journalism in a Post-Beheading Era" (PDF). Al Jazeera Center for Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  27. ↑ Patrick Cockburn (16 December 2016). "There's more propaganda than news coming out of Aleppo this week". The Independent. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
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