[ADN Kronos] An Iraqi insurgent group calling itself The Arrows of Truth Brigades has posted to jihadist websites a 90 second video entitled 'The Decapitation of a Spy'. The video, which shows in graphic detail a hooded executioner slitting the throat of a captive 'police informer', is believed to be the first Iraqi beheading to surface on the Internet in over a year.The hostage, whose gruesome execution is shown in the video, is accused of having told Iraqi police the exact location of roadside bombs the group has placed along the northern city of Mosul's streets to target military vehicles. In the video, the executioner, wearing a black hood and a white tunic, is seen placing the hostage on his side on a patch of grass, the position in which animals are ritually slaughtered under Islam.
The hostage, whose hands are bound, struggles, but his throat is quickly slit by the executioner and his assistants and is beheaded. "O apostates, this is the fate that will befall you," the executioner warns.
Al-Qaeda's late leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gained notoriety for his grisly beheadings of hostages, which were videoed and posted to the Internet. He was killed in a US airstrike in June 2006 near Baquba, in eastern Diyala province.
The little known Arrows of Truth Brigades are reported to be active in northern Iraq but are a smaller group than the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organisation including Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent formations.