Never-before-seen footage shows ISIS terrorists tying up blindfolded prisoners, brutally beating them with sticks and forcing them to stumble in long lines through the corridors of their headquarters.
ISIS has always done that have been careful about distributing professionally shot videos – often with no sign of crime or violence – in an effort to recruit people into what they call the caliphate.
But unbeknownst to them, the ISIS zealots spent months documenting the reality of life in a torture chamber – and as a result, revealed their identities to international prosecutors.
Grainy CCTV footage at a seized children’s hospital in Aleppo, Syria, kept rolling even after the terrorists made it their headquarters in 2013 — a mistake that will be gold dust for investigators hoping to hold them accountable.
The shocking video shared with CNN depicts ISIS zealots tying up a prisoner and letting him hang there as he struggles to get up, his arms tied behind his back.
Other scenes show hooded prisoners being beaten with a stick as they are forced to do squats with their hands tied behind their backs. One fanatic was seen laughing as he pushed down a victim’s head.
Other prisoners, their heads covered with bags, were seen marching in a long line through the gloomy corridors of the hospital that was now ISIS headquarters.
The shocking video shared with CNN shows ISIS zealots tying up a prisoner and letting him hang there as he struggles to get up, his arms tied behind his back
Other prisoners, their heads covered with bags, were seen marching in a long line through the gloomy corridors of the hospital that was now ISIS headquarters.
One terrorist was seen laughing as he pushed down a victim’s head.
In their comfort, the ISIS terrorists removed their masks – not realizing that their every move was being recorded by the hospital’s CCTV footage.
This oversight has allowed international prosecutors to collect important evidence and corroborate survivors’ testimonies.
“This is exactly the kind of treatment we’ve been hearing about from survivors,” Chris Engels, director of investigations and operations for the Commission on International Justice and Accountability, told CNN.
“What makes this important,” says Engels, pointing to an unmasked ISIS terrorist walking past a man being tortured, “this is someone who normally tries to hide his face outside.”
“That’s incredible evidence at trial — several individuals have been identified,” Engels said, adding that they were able to identify a French suspect based on the CCTV footage.
Hundreds of civilians were held in the makeshift prison in Aleppo’s Qadi Askar neighborhood. When it was liberated by rebels in January 2014, the bodies of dozens of prisoners were found scattered on the bloodied floor.
Many of the prisoners had been executed by the ISIS fanatics, their hands tied behind their backs.
But some made it out alive, including French journalist Didier Francois, who said he could hear the Syrian and Iraqi prisoners being beaten and tortured in the hospital.
“We could hear the Syrian prisoners in the first places where we were held,” François said CNN in 2015. ‘In the hospital of Aleppo, for example.’
Other scenes show hooded prisoners being beaten with a stick as they are forced to do squats with their hands tied behind their backs
In their comfort, the ISIS terrorists removed their masks – not realizing that their every move was being recorded by the hospital’s CCTV footage.
A blindfolded prisoner is led through the corridors of ISIS headquarters
Francois, a war correspondent for the Paris-based radio station Europe 1, added at the time: “There were also some Syrian and Iraqi prisoners there – local people who were detained for whatever reason – because they smoked or because the girls didn’t smoke. goods. wearing the right veil or whatever. And they were beaten and tortured. And we could hear them behind the doors.’
He said he often found prisoners in puddles of their own blood when they were taken to the toilet.
“There were a number of rooms where torture took place every night. And sometimes we were put in those rooms. And you could see the chains hanging or the ropes hanging or the iron bars.’
Engels said the grainy images from inside the hospital are “clear evidence of abuse that took place at the facility.”
“And it also helps identify the perpetrators responsible for the abuse,” he said. “We can show the world today what the Islamic State looked like behind the scenes.”
Last month, the UN revealed that ISIS still commands between 5,000 and 7,000 members in its former stronghold in Syria and Iraq and that its fighters are the most serious terrorist threat in Afghanistan today.
The terror group proclaimed a self-proclaimed caliphate over much of the territory in Syria and Iraq it seized in 2014.
It was declared defeated in Iraq in 2017 after a three-year battle that left tens of thousands dead and cities in ruins, but the sleeper cells are still in both countries.
Despite continued counter-terrorism operations, ISIS continues to command between 5,000 and 7,000 members in Iraq and Syria, “most of whom are combatants,” though it has deliberately reduced its attacks “to facilitate recruitment and reorganization,” UN experts said.
In northeastern Syria, about 11,000 suspected ISIS fighters are being held in facilities belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have played a prominent role in the fight against IS, the panel said. The fighters include more than 3,500 Iraqis and about 2,000 of nearly 70 nationalities, the report said.
Northeast Syria is also the site of two closed camps – al-Hol and Roj – where experts say some 55,000 people with alleged ties or family ties to IS live in “appalling” conditions and “considerable humanitarian hardship.”
About two-thirds of the population are children, including more than 11,800 Iraqis, nearly 16,000 Syrians and more than 6,700 young people from more than 60 other countries, the experts said.
The panel quoted an unnamed country as saying that ISIS has maintained its “Cubs of the Caliphate” program and is recruiting children in the overcrowded al-Hol camp. In addition, more than 850 boys, some as young as 10 years old, were in detention and rehabilitation centers in the northeast, the experts said.