Islamic State released a video purporting to show it killing 11 Christian men in Nigeria, saying it was part of a campaign to avenge the deaths of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and its spokesman.
“This is a message to Christians all over the world,” said a masked man in the one-minute video.
The militant group posted the footage on its online Telegram news channel on 26 December and analysts say it was clearly timed to coincide with Christmas celebrations.
The video showed men in beige uniforms and black masks lining up behind blindfolded captives, then shooting one and beheading the rest.
The 56-second video was produced by the IS “news agency” Amaq.
Nigeria’s government has not yet commented on the video, and nor have any of the aid agencies whose staff are being held by the “Islamic State West Africa Province” (Iswap).
One captive in the middle is shot dead while the other 10 are pushed to the ground and beheaded.
“We killed them as revenge for the killing of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and [IS spokesman] Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir,” said a member of the group’s media unit, according to Ahmad Salkida, a journalist who was first sent the video.
Islamic State leader Baghdadi died during a U.S. military raid in Syria and Muhajir in a separate military operation, both over the same weekend in late October.
In recent months, ISWAP has intensified its attacks on Christians, security personnel and aid staff, setting up roadblocks on highways and conducting searches.
The United Nations on Tuesday condemned the “increasing practice by armed groups to set up checkpoints targeting civilians” in the northeast of Nigeria.
On Sunday, the jihadists killed six people and abducted five others including two aid workers when they intercepted vehicles on a highway on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
In a similar attack on December 5, ISWAP fighters disguised as Nigerian soldiers stopped and searched vehicles at a checkpoint near Maiduguri.
The group claimed in a statement that six soldiers and eight civilians, including two Red Cross workers, were among those abducted in that attack.
Last week the group released a video showing 11 alleged hostages.
One of the detainees in the video who identified himself as a school teacher said all the 11 hostages were Christians and appealed to the Nigerian government to secure their release.
ISWAP pledged allegiance to Baghdadi in 2016 and split from insurgent group Boko Haram.
It stepped up attacks on military outposts and troops in mid-2018, but has increasingly begun targeting civilians.
The decade-long jihadist insurgency in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million, according to the United Nations.
The violence had spread to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the militants.
