ISIS-linked group in Syria beheads man accused of ‘sorcery’ – reports

Shocking images have emerged online purportedly showing an elderly man being publicly beheaded by Islamic State-affiliated militants in Syria for practicing ‘sorcery’.

According to the independent Kurdish press agency ARA News, the execution was carried out in Syria’s Daraa governorate by the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Army, a jihadist group operating in Syria under the banner of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). 

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The images, which were released on Tuesday, show the man being ‘tried’ by a militant-led court in a village. There another man, presumably a member of Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) religious police, reads out charges of ‘sorcery’ before a crowd, which includes several children.

Photos then show the prisoner blindfolded, bent over and about to be beheaded by a masked executioner.

The most gruesome of the photos shows the man with his severed head lying on his body.

The images, now circulating online, have been released by IS in a report titled the ‘Implementation of the law of Allah in the presence of Muslims’, the Daily Mail reported. 

IS is known to have executed a number of people for ‘sorcery’ or ‘witchcraft’, mostly members of the mystical Sufi order. Sufis deviate from Islamic orthodoxy in that they believe one does not have to strictly abide by the rules of Sharia to achieve spiritual purity, and make use of music and dancing in their ceremonies.

This has put them at odds with the ultra-conservative Salafi movement, including extremist groups such as IS. The terrorist group considers all those who do not subscribe to its hardline version of Islam enemies, including Shia Muslims and moderate Sunnis. In November, Sheikh Sulaiman Abu Haraz, a 100-year-old Sufi cleric in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, was kidnapped by the local branch of IS, which accused him of witchcraft and sorcery before beheading him.