A horrifying new 15-minute video appears to show Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists beheading four captured Kurdish Peshmerga fighters — and delivering a bold warning to President Barack Obama.
The video claims to be the ISIS response to a Delta Force-Kurdish raid in northern Iraq last week that cost American
Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler his life.
"Obama, you have learned a new lesson," a
masked terrorist warns Obama in what sounds like an American accent. “Six of the soldiers of the caliphate faced 400 of your children; they killed and injured them by Allah’s grace.”
The warning was delivered before the man executes one of the prisoners, reports
CNN, and the other three prisoners are also beheaded by the video's end. Arabic text also appears onscreen, translating as "Peshmerga soldiers that Americans came to rescue."
The video was released online Friday, and earlier in the clip, ISIS claims to show the aftermath of the raid, in which Kurdish, U.S., and Iraqi forces rescue 70 hostages from an ISIS prison in Hawija, located in Kirkuk, a province located in northern Iraq.
CNN reports that those who were set free included 20 of the Iraqi Security Forces, local residents and several ISIS fighters accused of spying. None of the hostages were Kurds.
As of Saturday morning, there had not been an official response issued from the White House on the video or the threat. But in Kurdistan, regional government spokesman Dindar Zebari told CNN that "ISIS respects no form of human rights. Our message to them is that we will finish them."
But Kurdistan will not kill ISIS prisoners in response, Zebari said.
"We hold 215 ISIS prisoners and we treat them according to international human rights laws," he said. "We have also freed 85 prisoners who had been suspected of association with ISIS. We do not kill our prisoners."
The Kurdistan regional government said that more than 20 ISIS fighters were killed in last week's raid, and six more were captured.
The Kurdish Peshmerga, which protects an autonomous region in northern Iraq, has been fighting against ISIS and its push to take Iraq and Syria and create a caliphate.
ISIS earlier this week said the Delta Force-Kurdish raid, called for by the Kurds to rescue Peshmerga fighters, was a failure.
The man who issued the threat does not appear to be the infamous "Jihadi John," the English-speaking jihadist who has appeared in several other ISIS beheading videos.
The terrorist, whose real name is believed to be
Mohammed Emwazi, is considered to be a priority target after killing American, Western, and Japanese hostages.
Meanwhile, two Syrian activists have also been killed in recent days in the Turkish town of Urfa, and their deaths are being blamed on ISIS.
According to the groups Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and Eye on Homeland, activists Ibrahim Abdul Qadir and Faris Humadi were the men who were shot and beheaded. ISIS has not yet claimed responsibility for their deaths.
Qadir and Humadi worked for Eye on Homeland, a Syrian media group that reports on the civil war, and Qadar also was a founding member of the Raqqa group, which posts photos, video, and other information online from the Raqqa province in Syria.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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