Islamic State in Nigeria ‘beheads Christian hostages’
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Image copyrightAFPThe Islamic State group has released a video claiming to show the killing of 11 Christians in Nigeria.
IS said it was part of its recently declared campaign to “avenge” the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a US raid in Syria in October.
No details were given about the victims, who were all male, but IS says they were “captured in the past weeks” in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno State.
The 56-second video was produced by the IS “news agency” Amaq.
It was released on 26 December and analysts say it was clearly timed to coincide with Christmas celebrations.
President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the apparent killings and urged Nigerians not to let themselves be divided along religious lines.
“We should, under no circumstance, let the terrorists divide us by turning Christians against Muslims because these barbaric killers don’t represent Islam and millions of other law-abiding Muslims around the world,” he said in a statement.
He did not mention the identity of the victims.
The aid agencies whose staff are being held by the “Islamic State West Africa Province” (Iswap) have not yet commented.
What do we see in the video?
The footage was filmed in an unidentified outdoor area.
One captive in the middle is shot dead while the other 10 are pushed to the ground and beheaded.
“We killed them as revenge for the killing of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and [IS spokesman] Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir,” said a member of the group’s media unit, according to Ahmad Salkida, a journalist who was first sent the video.
How active is Islamic State in Nigeria?
One faction of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram broke away in 2016 and now fights under the banner of Iswap.
Earlier this month, the group said it had killed four aid workers it had abducted in north-eastern Nigeria.
It is also active in neighbouring countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Mali.
Dozens of hostages still being held
Ishaq Khalid, BBC News, Abuja
The video once again highlights the brutal tactics of Iswap, while the timing of the release – over the Christmas period – is also designed to get maximum attention.
This video may be intended to increase tension between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, as well as put more pressure on the government to respond to their demands, says security analyst Kabiru Adamu.
Earlier this month, the group released a video of the captives, appealing to the Nigerian authorities and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to intervene.
Iswap has used hostage-taking as a bargaining tool – either for ransom or in exchange for their arrested members, although the authorities have never confirmed carrying out a prisoner swap.
The militant group has previously killed a number of hostages, including members of the security forces and aid workers but this is the largest group to be killed at one time.
It is not clear how many captives Iswap is currently holding in Nigeria, but there are believed to be dozens – mainly security forces, aid workers and those perceived to be associated with government institutions.
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Isis ‘beheads 10 Christian hostages’ in new video
Terror group offshoot claims killings are retaliation for death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Isis has released a video that shows its militant fighters executing 11 Christians in Nigeria.
The militant group’s west African offshoot posted footage to Telegram on Boxing Day, showing men in uniforms and black masks beheading 10 blindfolded captives and shooting an eleventh prisoner.
The so-called Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap), a faction of Boko Haram, gave no details of the captives’ identities, but an earlier video said they had been taken from the northeastern states of Borno and Yobe, where militants have been fighting for years to establish an Islamist state.
“We killed them as revenge for the killing of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and [Isis spokesman] Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir,” a member of the group’s media unit said, according to the journalist first sent the footage, Ahmad Salkida.
While some analysts suggested the killings had been timed to coincide with Christmas, Mr Salkida said the timing was more likely due to recent clashes in the area, following a spate of jihadist-driven skirmishes near the towns of Maiduguri and Damaturu.
“It’s obvious both violent groups [Iswap and Boko Haram] want to use the symbolism of Christmas day to drive their messages,” Mr Salkida wrote on Twitter.
“This is a coincidence because the two factions clashed earlier in the week with scores of casualties.”
The earlier video showed the all-male captives appealing for the Christian Association of Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and save them, according to Reuters.
The footage was possibly an attempt to divide the country’s Muslim and Christian populations and pile pressure on the government to respond to militants’ demands, security analyst Kabiru Adamu told the BBC.
President Buhari said in a statement on Friday he was “profoundly saddened and shocked by the death of innocent hostages in the hands of remorseless, godless, callous gangs of mass murderers that have given Islam a bad name through their atrocities”.
“We should, under no circumstance, let the terrorists divide us by turning Christians against Muslims because these barbaric killers don’t represent Islam and millions of other law-abiding Muslims around the world,” he continued.
While the footage was released via Isis’ Amaq media agency, experts suggest that Iswap’s connection with Isis is more or less nominal, with the group likely receiving little in the way of funding or support from their allies in the Middle East.
But Islamist violence in Nigeria has increased in the past six months, the UN warned, with the agency’s acting humanitarian coordinator, Antonio Jose Canhandula, condemning militants’ increasing practice of setting up fake checkpoints and abducting civilians.
Iswap is believed to be holding dozens of hostages – mainly soldiers, aid workers and those publicly aligned to the government.
The recent footage came as Mr Canhandula and UN secretary general Antonio Guterres condemned the alleged execution of dozens of civilians along the road linking Borno and Yobe on 23 December.
That same day, the Nigerian army killed 30 Iswap militants as they attempted to invade Damaturu, including the leading commander, local media reported.
On 24 December, a Nigerian soldier was killed defending the former president Goodluck Jonathan’s country residence in Bayelsa State from an attack by gunmen.
Calling on the government to do more to combat the rise in violence and protect civilians, Mr Canhandula said that in 2019 alone more than160,000 people fled their homes for shelter in already congested refugee camps.