A group of Syrian Islamist militants posted a series of photographs of a man having his hand cut off in a live-update on Twitter.
The live-feed of the amputation, which was carried out in the northern town of Maskanah, near Aleppo, was re-tweeted by several Jihadi social media channels.
The group responsible, militant organisation ISIS – Islamist State in Iraq and Syria – claimed the man, an alleged thief, had requested to be punished in this way.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Horrific: This was the first in a series of gruesome images posted on Twitter from extremist group ISIS showing crowds watch an alleged thief have his hand cut off.
Brutal: Militants held the alleged thief back as one advanced with a sword to chop his hand off.
Several Jihadi accounts said the ‘thief’ had admitted his crimes ‘and also asked that his hand be cut off to cleanse his sins’.
It was not immediately possible to verify the accounts, and the photographs and tweets have now been removed from Twitter.
One photo showed a blindfolded man with his hand being held down on a table while surrounded by a large group of militant rebels.
A man dressed in a traditional white robe stands in front of the table, and on the right side is a man in a black balaclava holding a large sword.
A later photo showed the man with his hand severed, the limb resting on the bloodied table.
Graphic: The final image showed the man seemingly passed out after his hand had been severed.
Live amputation: The group claimed the man had asked for the punishment to be carried out in Maskanah, near Aleppo in northern Syria, to ‘cleanse him of sins’.
The Twitter account that posted the images has now been suspended from the social networking site.
The punishment was inflicted by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a pro-Al Qaeda Jihadist group that many fear is taking an iron grip over parts of Syria.
The group was formed in April 2013 and grew out of Al Qaeda’s affiliate organisation in Iraq, but it was formally disowned by the central organisation on February 3 for being too extreme.
One of its leaders, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been deemed Middle East’s most-wanted by the Iraqi interior ministry after a series of terrorist attacks which won him the moniker ‘The Ghost’.
Born from ISI (Islamic State in Iraq), it fought U.S. troops in the country before the end of the Iraq war in 2011.
It has since become one of the main Jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria and is mainly composed of foreign fighters.
