ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State published a video purportedly showing a Kurdish militant of the group beheading a Peshmerga hostage before a crowd in Mosul, and threatening to kill two other Peshmerga prisoners who kneel before him. The video was released as ISIS faces an Iraqi Army offensive on villages in Makhmour that is seen as a first step of a war to liberate Mosul, the ISIS stronghold in Iraq since it was captured by the militants in June 2014. Peshmerga units and a US Marine base in the area have been providing backing and artillery support to the Iraqi forces in their fight. In the six-minute-video published Tuesday, a militant in Kurdish clothes is shown beheading one of the three Peshmerga hostages. The murderer verbally attacks Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani and the United States. Since ISIS attacked the Kurdistan Region in August 2014, igniting a war with Iraq’s Kurds that is still ongoing, the group has released several videos showing the beheadings of Peshmerga soldiers. In the previous such release, a video published in October showed the beheadings of four Peshmerga in Hawija, at the site where US Special Forces and Peshmerga fighters had freed 70 Iraqi Army soldiers from ISIS. ISIS reportedly had a steady source of Kurdish recruits until it attacked the Kurds.
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