Sick new ISIS video shows children helping behead hostages in Syria

The young militants are seen gleefully handing out combat knives used in the beheadings      PHOTO   ;   COURTESY

Syria: Depraved new footage from ISIS shows children handing over knives to militants before eight Syrian nationals are seemingly beheaded.

The latest propaganda film from the terror group claims to show the execution of the Shi'ite Muslims in the central Syrian province of Hama.

Eight men, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs and wearing orange jumpsuits, are seen being led into a field by armed teenage boys in the footage.

They are forced to their knees before the young militants gleefully hand over combat knives to their senior IS counterparts.

Finally, the terrified hostages are forced to lie on the ground before they are butchered.

One of the masked fighters speaking in the video uses a derogatory term for Shi'ites and calls them 'impure infidels'.

In a chilling declaration of defiance, he insists that current military campaigns against ISIS will only make the terror group stronger.

'Our swords will soon, God willing, reach the Nuseiries and their allies like Bashar and his party,' he says - a reference to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group which is fighting on his side.

The word Nuseiry is a derogatory term to refer to Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Lebanese media reports that one of the murdered men is Younes Hujairi, who was kidnapped from his hometown of Arsal near the Syrian border in January.

Although the authenticity of the footage has not yet been independently verified, the country's state-run National News Agency quoted Mr Hujairi's family as saying he had been beheaded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that the video is authentic.

The video is the latest in a series of films showing the brutal execution of hostages in Syria by the extremist organisation.

The group has caused widespread terror after taking large parts of Iraq and Syria last year.