ISIS releases video of execution of ‘five British spies’

The Islamic State militant group has released a new video purporting to show the execution of five British spies, and threatening UK Prime Minister David Cameron over the UK’s campaign in Syria.

In the 10-minute video, which seems to have been professionally produced and which appears to have been released by the group’s Raqqa-based media arm, five men are shown wearing orange jumpsuits and “confessing” to spying on behalf of the UK security services.

The captives were filmed ‘confessing’ in Arabic to spying for British security services.

Later in the video, the alleged spies are shown kneeling before being shot in the back of the head at point blank range.  It is thought that the spies are not British citizens, but have been executed for working for the coalition and for providing photos and videos from inside Raqqa.

Charlie Winter, an expert in Isis's media output, said they are alleged to have handed intelligence to foreign fighters from the UK while other analysts say their confession is likely to have been coerced and made under huge duress.

The video, which cannot be independently verified, ends with a trailer for a further execution and a brief clip of a young child, wearing militant garb and speaking with a British accent, appearing to say: "We will kill the kuffar [non-believers] over there."

The video sees one of the executioners speak in a British accent threaten David Cameron and the UK. Describing UK Prime Minister David Cameron as an “imbecile”, “slave of the White House”, and a “mule of the Jews”, the masked gunman can be heard as saying: “This is a message to David Cameron.”

“It seems that you, just like your predecessors [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown, are just as arrogant and foolish … Only an imbecile would dare to wage war against a land where the law of Allah reigns supreme and where the people live under the justice and security of the Sharia.” 

“Only an imbecile would dare to anger a people who love death the way that you love your life.”

The masked gunman, who was speaking in a British accent, said the Islamic State is here to stay and in an address to the “people of Britain,” the militant said Isis will “one day invade tour land, where will rule by the Shariah.”

“But as for those of you who wish to continue fighting under the banner of Cameron on the minimum wage, we say to you, to ask yourself, do you really think your government will care about you when you come into our hands?

Or will they abandon you, as they have abandoned these spies, and those who came before them … But this time when you lose, your children will pay for your deeds.”

Middle East analysts have reported a sharp increase in the number of propaganda videos released by Isis after its loss of the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

A mixture of old and new footage, the flurry of activity has been seen as an attempt to distract from that significant defeat.

The executioner bore a chilling resemblance to ISIS’s former executioner, Jihadi John. The militant, real name Mohammed Emwazi, was filmed executing British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, American aid worker Peter Kassig and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, before being killed by a US drone strike in the terror group’s de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria in November.