MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The leader of ISIL jihadist group has issued an edict banning followers from broadcasting videos depicting brutal killings of their hostages, local media reported.
Abu Bakr Baghdadi was cited by pro-ISIL media sources as ordering that only the beginning and end of the victims’ beheading be allowed to air via the group’s media outlets. A series of Arab, Israeli and Indian publications reported on the ruling Saturday.
The reason behind Baghdadi’s edict, thought to be a few weeks old and first made public by the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily, is said to be in respect of “sensitivities of Muslims and children who find such images repulsive.”
Syria’s ARA News, however, claimed that other ISIL militants resisting the so-called caliph’s orders on the grounds of maintaining the full depiction of decapitations as an intimidation tactic.
ISIL is infamous for circulating footage depicting gruesome executions – including by stoning, burning, shooting and beheading – of captive fighters, foreign hostages and, most commonly, civilians.
