Islamic State have released one of their most sickening videos to date, showing what appears to be a young child shooting two suspected "Russian spies" in the back of the head and then celebrating the execution-style killing.
The seven-minute video, which has been shared on jihadist networks, shows two men with their heads shaven speaking in Russian, with the title 'Uncovering the Enemy Within'. It has not been independently verified but is extremely similar in its production values and distribution as other Islamic State videos.
"The following presentation is a portion of the confessions of two agents recruited by Russian Intelligence," the introductory text reads, with a Russian voiceover. It names the two men, dubbed agents of Russia's Federal Security Bureau (FSB), as 38-year-old Mamayev Jambulat Yesenjanovich from Jambul, Kazakhstan, and 30-year-old Ashimov Sergey Nikolayavich, whose nationality is not given.
Yesenjanovich claims he was sent to the area controlled by Islamic State, which they call 'Sham', to "gather information about fighters from Russia" and to hack a laptop of an unnamed person in Turkey to extract information. Nikolayavich claims he was sent to determine the residence of an Islamic State leader and to kill him, but the individual is not named. Both men are dressed in grey sweaters and filmed sitting against a white wall.
The two men are then seen kneeling in scrubland, with a long-bearded bearded fighter wielding a machine gun and wearing green combat gear and booths. Next to him stands a long-haired child, around 10-years-old, who appears to be the same Kazakh child, called only 'Abdullah' featuring in a previous IS video. He is wearing an enormous watch and holding a pistol. Titles say the men are in the custody of the "lion cubs".
Horrifyingly, the pair then appear to be clinically shot in the head by the child, who holds his gun triumphantly in the air. The video does not graphically show their deaths, however, which does not rule out the possibility that the killings are staged.
The film, which has the same high production values and gratuitous use of slow motion that have characterised many Islamic State films, then cuts to a close-up of the child taken from a previous film, speaking in the Kazakh dialect and dressed in a military camouflage. Other children in uniform can be seen in the background.
"Who will you be in the future, insha'allah (god willing)?" a voice off-camera asks.
"I will be the one who slaughters you, O kuffar (unbelievers). I will be a mujahid, insha'allah," the child replies.
The child later appears in military uniform
Neither the Russian or Kazakh authorities have commented on the video. 'Abdullah', the child who shoots the two men, is believed to be the same one as featured on a video released in November 2014, where children are seen learning Arabic, studying the Koran, and later doing training with Kalashnikovs and learning hand-to-hand combat.
Russia is believed to have around 400 citizens fighting with Islamic State, though many more could be there who are from Chechnya.
Afghan officials confirmed for the first time on Monday that the Islamic State has crossed the border into its third country. Associated Press reported that a IS commander named Mullah Abdul Rauf was recruiting fighters in the southern Helmand province, but the Taliban has threatened people not to be in touch with him.
Rauf was a former corps commander in the Taliban before 2001 and was detained for years at Guantanamo Bay after the US invasion, AP reported.