The men are hobbling and bound together with balls and chains. They are made to kneel and then shot dead.
Fighters from a Syrian insurgent group appear to have killed more than a dozen Islamic State
captives with gunshots to the head, according to a video posted online
on Wednesday which evoked a similar style to the jihadist group's own
footage.
The insurgents from a group known as Islam Army
are shown wearing orange jumpsuits and leading a group of alleged
Islamic State fighters dressed in black along a road lined by trees. The
men are hobbling and bound together with balls and chains. They are
made to kneel and then shot dead.
Islam Army was
formed by a merger of rebel factions in 2013 and is mainly
based in the
eastern Ghouta area near Damascus. Its leader Zahran Alloush is one of
the most prominent figures of the insurgency and his role has taken him
recently to Istanbul and Amman, both hubs for Syrian opposition activity
against President Bashar al-Assad.
The video,
tweeted on an Islam Army Twitter feed and posted on its website, said
its fighters were avenging Islamic State's own killings of Islam Army
members.
The video's commentary combines religious
and sectarian language and accuses Islamic State of working with
Shi'ite Muslims and the minority Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.
With
its English subtitles and professional-style camerawork, the video
evokes Islamic State's own "execution" videos in which the group has
beheaded and shot dead captives.
Parts of the video have footage set to Islamic chanting, similar to Islamic State's productions.
Alloush
appeared to back down from the group's hardline rhetoric in May in an
interview with McClatchy Newspapers. He called Alawites "part of the
Syrian people" and said Syrians would be free to choose "the form of
state they want" after Assad.
He said the group had 10,000 fighters in the Damascus suburbs and another 7,000 elsewhere in Syria.
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