Unrelated old video shared as the recent visuals of radical Islamic groups executing Christians in Iraq - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 4, 2023
A video is being shared on social media claiming it shows a recent incident of radical Islamic groups executing Christians in Iraq. The post claims that the Islamic groups have recently seized Iraq’s largest Christian city and beheaded 229 Christians brutally on the streets. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of radical Islamic groups brutally executing Christians in Iraq.
Fact: The post shared a 2014 video of Islamic State terrorists executing Sunnis in the Al-Bab city of the Aleppo Governate in Syria. The IS militants then killed Syrian Sunnis accusing them of wanting to join the Syrian army, loyal to Bashar Al Assad. The video does not show the execution of Christians in Iraq. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, the screengrabs from the video were found in an article published by the RT news site on 23 November 2014. The news site reported it is the disturbing visuals of Islamic State terrorists executing Syrian Sunnis in the city of Al-Bab, Aleppo Governorate, Syria.
As per the report, the Islamic State released this video of the savage execution of Syrian Sunnis who were accused by IS of wanting to join the Syrian army, loyal to President Bashar Al Assad. The execution reportedly took place in Al-Bab city of the Aleppo Governate in Syria. Several news sites published articles reporting about this disturbing video released by IS in 2014. They can be seen here, here, and here.
Since 2017, there have been many social media posts and articles discussing the destruction of Christian churches and the execution of Christian missionaries in Africa and Afghanistan. Earlier, when a similar fake message circulated on social media alleging that Taliban militants have executed 229 Christian Missionaries in Afghanistan, Factly published a fact-check article debunking that claim.
To sum it up, an unrelated old video was shared as the recent visuals of radical Islamic groups executing Christian missionaries in Iraq.