Islamic State beheadings

in Jerusalem, protesting about the 2015 beheading of Ethiopian Christians in Libya According to historian Ibrahim al-Marashi, modern beheadings as part of terror campaigns began during the war in Chechnya with decapitations of Russian soldiers. • U.S. incarceration of Pakistani Muslim woman Aafia Siddiqui; • the U.S. and its government having "no motivation to deal with the Muslims except with the language of force". According to historian al-Marashi, IS uses beheadings of locals to intimidate people, including their own soldiers, into obeying the dictates of a weak state. Beheadings of Westerners are designed to strike back at the United Kingdom and the United States for military actions that IS has no other way of responding to. "With an act of a sword, they manage to force both [American President] Obama and [British Prime Minister] Cameron to react. The two men, who control the world's most advanced militaries, find themselves at the mercy of the sword. Both displayed physical pain and grief when they condemned the way their nationals died." says al-Marashi. "Terror marketing" to recruit new fighters is another motivation, according to Paul Cruickshank, a terrorism analyst for CNN. "Some of these men have sort of a pornographic attraction to these violent scenes, these violent beheading videos. It really sort of energizes them", Cruickshank told The Atlantic. == List of incidents ==

Jihadi John Sky News spoke to a defector, from the Islamic State, who claimed he witnessed Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, murder Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. He is the only person to admit seeing Emwazi kill. The Islamic State said that Emwazi was employed as the chief killer of foreign hostages. The Islamic State claimed foreign hostages captured and murdered by the group were subjected to numerous mock executions until the mock procedure became normal, which, it has been suggested, was why many hostages appeared calm in execution videos published online by the group. The Islamic State said the hostages were beheaded later. 2014 Australian counter-terrorism raids In a pre-dawn police raid on 18 September 2014, Australian law enforcement detained 15 individuals in Sydney and Brisbane who were allegedly plotting a "demonstration execution". The detainees' purported plan was to kidnap a random resident of Sydney and behead the individual on camera, draped in the black flag of the Islamic State. The beheading did not occur. Theresa May assassination plot In November 2017, Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman planned to detonate bombs and behead the then British prime minister Theresa May in the name of Islamic State. He was arrested before he could do so and convicted in 2018. Beheading of a child in Mozambique In March 2021, Save the Children, a UK-based aid group, reported the beheading of a 12-year-old child by IS-linked militants. == International response ==

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the actions of the militants, and Jihadi John in particular, and vowed punishment for all the militants responsible behind the videotaped beheadings. Secretary of State John Kerry also called Jihadi John a "coward behind a mask" and, echoing Obama, stated that all those responsible would be held accountable by the United States. British Prime Minister David Cameron also condemned the actions and stated that he was absolutely certain that Jihadi John would "one way or another, face justice". Other figures—such as Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, and Secretary General of Interpol Ronald Noble—also stated that Jihadi John should be brought to justice. The day after the video of the beheading of Steven Sotloff surfaced, Cameron told the House of Commons: "I am sure the whole House, and the whole country, will join with me in condemning the sickening and brutal murder of another American hostage, and share our shock and anger that it again appears to have been carried out by a British citizen. All our thoughts are with the British hostage and his family. Their ordeal is unimaginable." He concluded: "A country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers. If they think we will weaken in the face of their threats, they are wrong. It will have the opposite effect. We will be more forthright in the defence of the values, liberty under the rule of law, freedom, democracy that we hold dear." The White House released this statement via Twitter: "The United States strongly condemns the barbaric murder of UK citizen David Haines by the terrorist group ISIL. Our hearts go out to the family of Mr. Haines and to the people of the United Kingdom. The United States stands shoulder to shoulder tonight with our close friend and ally in grief and resolve. We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world." The British Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) has been working to "take extremist material off the internet" and has removed over 28,000 pieces of "unlawful terrorist-related content" between December 2013 and August 2014. In response to the beheading of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, Agence France-Presse (AFP) released a statement saying that it would "no longer accept work from freelance journalists who travel to places where we ourselves would not venture", including Syria. The Boston-based media company GlobalPost, for whom Foley had been a contributor, released a statement saying, "While we continue to send staff correspondents to Syria, we no longer accept freelance work from that war zone." Two days after the beheading of Hervé Gourdel, hundreds of Muslims gathered in the Grand Mosque of Paris to show solidarity against the beheading. The protest was led by the leader of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, Dalil Boubakeur, and was joined by thousands of other Muslims around the country. French president François Hollande said Gourdel's beheading was "cowardly" and "cruel", and confirmed that airstrikes would continue against ISIL in Iraq. Hollande also called for three days of national mourning, with flags flown at half-mast throughout the country and said that security would be increased throughout Paris. == See also ==