This is perhaps the most elaborate and graphic of all the murder videos posted online by IS. Much of it is taken up with a recent history lesson on Iraq and Syria as seen through the eyes of the jihadists. But the latter part shows the beheading of 18 Syrian prisoners in revolting, lingering detail.
Unlike earlier videos, this one revels in gore. Amongst the boiler-suited captives murdered in cold blood is a man IS says is the former US soldier Peter Kassig, who converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman.
Neither his conversion, nor the fact that he was helping refugees when he was captured a year ago, appear to have saved him.
Sky's Sam Kiley says this:
In the latest atrocious production from the house of horror, a group of men that, the voiceover claims, is made up of airmen from the Syrian forces of Bashar al Assad are beheaded on camera.
The faces of the soon to be dead and their killers are shown in detail. There are cutaway shots of the murderers casually fiddling with the knives they employ.
It's lurid.
We already knew that IS are savages, but we also learn a few other things. Going on TV dressed so as not to offend Moslems while pleading for a loved one's life is a wast of time. Converting to Islam so as not to offend is also a waste of time. Volunteering to go out to help is a waste of time. If you are not one of them, IS, you are fair game. The only way to deal with this group is massive force and and that has to be applied wherever they are be it in Raqqah, Bradford or New Jersey.
If a group was shown beheading cattle or sheep for the hell of it there would be hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets.........