Significant Decline in Islamic State (IS) Execution Videos
In the roughly one-year period prior to the Islamic State (IS) declaring a caliphate on 29 Jun. 2014, the group had only released 11 videos showing executions. That all changed with Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's declaration. Core IS in Iraq and Syria rapidly embarked on an unprecedented evolution of execution methods and how to film it. No other terrorist group in history ever filmed and released as many videos showing executions. Nor has any group ever exhibited such creativity in how to kill their captives. Protests over previous Emir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's use of beheadings during the height of fighting in Iraq had become a thing of the past. Videos rapidly progressed beyond simple beheadings to drowning people in a cage lowered into a swimming pool, explosive necklaces, firing an RPG at a car with people secured inside, running over a hostage with a tank and a myriad of others. While beheadings remained a staple, those doing the beheadings became younger and younger. When they were too young to have the arm strength to decapitate a hostage, IS had children not much older than a toddler execute hostages with pistols.
In the six-month period following the declaration, core IS doubled the number of execution videos it released over the prior year. The following year, 2015, that would explode with a more than 11x increase in the number of execution videos released. A jump from 11 to 125. Things began to only slightly improve in 2016 with a drop to 117 execution videos. However, 2017 is proving to represent a significant decline. As of 18 Jul. 2017, the group released just 32 videos featuring executions. Current projections show the group will end 2017 with a 53% reduction in releases from 2016.
The drop cannot be attributed to a reduction in overall video production by IS in 2017 as it has continued to increase the number of videos released despite significant losses on the ground. There are likely a number of different factors driving the drop. These may include the loss of key personnel involved in their production, shift in focus by new media personnel, loss of territory and others. However, even at around 50-60 execution releases a year, the Islamic State would still dominate the top position for such releases by any group.
Methodology Note:
This report only counted video releases by core Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Other IS Wilayats outside of Syria and Iraq were not included. All of the videos referenced in this report can be viewed in the IntelCenter Database (ICD) Video Component by searching under Islamic State (IS) using the "Execution" and "Beheading" content tags.