ISIS Video Appears to Show Beheading of British Hostage

Looks similar to other released videos

An Internet video released Friday purports to show an Islamic State group fighter beheading British hostage Alan Henning.

The video mirrored other beheading videos shot by the Islamic State group, which now holds territory along the border of Syria and Iraq.

The video ended with an Islamic State fighter threatening a man they identified as an American.

"Obama, you have started your aerial bombard of Shams (Syria), which keep on striking our people, so it is only right that we strike the next of your people," a masked militant said.

Comments

[Mercutio]

Can someone please explain why beheading is such a big deal? Would these people be any less dead if they had been shot or hanged instead?

[bassjoe]

The image of it I think is much more powerful. It's an extremely intimate way to kill somebody. One human being is going up to another with nothing but a knife or machete and slicing his head off, as the victim goes through immense amounts of pain and literally dies in his hands.

It's much different than having an executioner pulling a lever and the guy's neck breaking or a firing squad shooting the guy from 50 feet away.

[Lyle]

They don't just behead people they shoot in the back of the head too.

It's all bad. Beheading is this perceived as particularly gruesome.

[OneOut]

If they saw your head off with a knife vs. lopping it off with a aword or ax I imagine it would be a gruesome way to go.

[Faceless Commenter]

There's a line in the Quran that specifies beheading. I believe the Quran or at least early Islamic history also has a lot of sword imagery.

[sasob]

I hope every goddamned one of these murdering psychopaths gets incinerated.