Jihadists send Xmas message beheading Christians in Nigeria

The terrorist group known as the Islamic State in West Africa Province released a 56-second video published by the IS propaganda media arm Amaq that shows the shooting of one man followed by the beheading of 10 others.

Jihadists wearing black masks and beige uniforms lined up behind the hostages — who were all blindfolded — as they carried out the executions, according to those who've watched the video.

“This message is to the Christians in the world,” a man speaking over the video footage says in both Arabic and Hausa, a Nigerian language, said the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, according to The New York Times which also reviewed the video. “Those who you see in front of us are Christians, and we will shed their blood as revenge for the two dignified sheikhs, the caliph of the Muslims, and the spokesman for the Islamic State, Sheikh Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, may Allah accept them.”

The terrorist group's attack on Christians the day after Christmas was strategically planned, terrorism analysts told the BBC.

While the location of the execution hasn't been made public, Reuters reports that an earlier video indicated that ISWAP jihadists took the men hostage in “Maiduguri and Damaturu in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno, where militants have been fighting for years to set up a separate Islamist state.”

“In that video, the captives pleaded for the Christian Association of Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari to save them,” Reuters added.