\n\nThe ISIL (ISIS) group has released a video claiming to show the execution of 11 Christians in northeast Nigeria, one day after Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The footage posted in an online Telegram news channel late on Thursday by ISIL-linked propaganda arm Amaq showed 11 blindfolded men being lined up at an unidentified outdoor location.
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One man is shot before the other 10 are beheaded. A masked man in the almost one-minute video claimed the killings were in response to the death of ISIL chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his spokesman.<\/strong> Al-Baghdadi committed suicide in October to avoid capture during a raid by United States special forces on his hideout in the province of Idlib, northwestern Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attacks intensify<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent months, Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) has intensified its attacks on Christians, security personnel and aid workers, setting up roadblocks on main roads and conducting searches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A previous video, seen by Reuters News Agency, said the captives had been taken from Maiduguri and Damaturu in Nigeria’s northeast, where fighters have been attempting for years to set up a separate state under Islamic law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that earlier video, the captives pleaded for the Christian Association of Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and save them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ISWAP split from Nigerian armed group Boko Haram in 2016, pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It stepped up attacks on military outposts and troops in mid-2018 but has increasingly begun targeting civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The decade-long armed uprising in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The violence had spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to combat the fighters.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ISIL (ISIS) group has released a video claiming to show the execution of 11 Christians in northeast Nigeria, one day after Christmas. The footage posted in an online Telegram news channel late on Thursday by ISIL-linked propaganda arm Amaq showed 11 blindfolded men being lined up at an unidentified outdoor location. One man is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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