Alwaght- Militants from the “Noureddine Zanki” group, which is labelled as moderate by the US, have beheaded a Palestinian child from the city of Aleppo. The child whose killing has been recorded and circulated appears to be no older than 13 years old.
The killing was carried out before a crowd on charges of belonging to the Palestinian al-Quds Brigade, a faction that is fighting alongside the Syrian army against the ongoing wave of violence and is active in Aleppo and its countryside.
Opposition activists circulated a video showing the boy in civilian attire and sitting inside a truck. He appears to be surrounded by a group of militants. The video also showed that he was being treated for his injuries.
A militant claimed that the child was a member of the al-Quds brigade, saying he was captured during clashes in northern Aleppo.
The boy was identified as Abdallah Issa, a resident of the Handarat refugee camp. Witnesses said the boy was kidnapped from Handarat.
Another video showed a terrorist decapitating Issa in a bloody scene and amid calls of “God is Great.”
The Palestinian faction, meanwhile, denied any relations with the victim. Its spokesperson was quoted by Lebanese media as saying: “We do not recruit children. In addition, all of our fighters don military uniforms not civilian clothing.”
The source said it was likely that Issa was kidnapped prior to the incident and was only beheaded now to instil fear among residents of the area as the Syrian army and its allies continue to make advances in the restive province.
The appalling incident is not the first of its kind in Syria where extremists have been wreaking havoc since the conflict broke out in 2011.
One particular case is that of Mohammad Kataa who was slaughtered at the hands of al-Nusra Front militants in Aleppo almost 3 years ago. He was accused of infidelity.
Critically, this latest crime against an innocent child was perpetrated by one of the groups that Washington is keen on calling “moderate.” The West has been supporting the so-called moderate rebels in Syria against Syrian President Bashar, failing to distinguish between them and the terrorist groups which are also being funded by foreign states.
The sight of Issa’s beheading is a painful reminder that these “moderate” factions do not relate to any kind of moderate thinking. Instead they are merely labelled as so to be able to legitimize some sort of armed opposition against the Syrian army and replace the current government in power.
While many have claimed that these moderate groups are capable of assuming power by replacing Assad and still appear to be unrelated to openly extremist groups such as ISIS, gory videos such as the latest to emerge on social media, particularly showing the ruthless beheading of a child, may be an even more frequent event should such ideologies reach power.
