"Moderate" Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki Behead a Child Alive

On July 19th, 2016, fighters of Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki brutally beheaded a 10-13 year old boy alive in Handarat, Aleppo. Zenki claimed he was a captured fighter belonging to the pro-Government Liwa al-Quds militia. Liwa al-Quds denied this, stating that the boy was a kidnapped Palestinian refugee. The child has been identified as Abdallah Issa.

The boy is first seen in the back of a truck with an IV in his arm. It is unlikely Zenki would have taken the time to do this if they were simply going to execute him. This suggests he may have been kidnapped.

The Zenki rebels taunt him, calling him a "dog of Bashar." It is here that they state are going to kill him.

One fighter then lays the boy out in the back of the pickup truck.

The boy is then beheaded to joyous calls of "Allahu Akbar."

After footage of this brutal incident was posted online, pro-opposition analysts/propagandists went into a panic trying to whitewash the crime, or to claim that this doesn't represent the Zenki group as a whole.

Some tried to portray collateral airstrike casualties as being on the same level as the beheading of a child.

The Ex US ambassador to Syria is speaking as if Zenki could still be a viable group for US support, even after beheading a child.

Even after this incident, Pro-opposition propagandists refuse to admit that their "moderate rebels" are as bad as other extremists.

The pro-opposition analysts/propagandists were quick to defend Zenki because the group had been labeled moderate by the US Government. Zenki is part of the "Fatah Halab" coalition alongside many Free Syrian Army groups. Weapons had been supplied to them by the CIA "Train and Equip" program. TOW anti-tank guided missiles were first delivered to Zenki in 2014. They can be seen using US supplied TOWs below.

Zenki had last used TOW missiles as late as June 2016.

Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki is not a moderate rebel group, that has been made clear by this execution. In addition to this, Zenki has been a close ally of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda's Syrian branch) for some time. Recently, both Zenki and JaN fought alongside each other at Mallah farms, Aleppo.

Zenki filmed a BMP-1 belonging to Jabhat al-Nusra, both groups are going into battle together.

Jabhat al-Nusra even admitted that they worked together with Zenki at Mallah Farms in a press release.

Zenki's leader has also been seen with Jabhat al-Nusra's Abdallah Muhaysini.

Rebels around Aleppo are now in a desperate situation. The only road leading into rebel held Eastern Aleppo city has been cut by the Syrian Army, and now rebels have a massive public relations disaster on their hands. A military defeat for Zenki and the other jihadists around Aleppo seems imminent. The US must stop supplying weapons to groups that work alongside al-Qaeda and engage in the beheading of children. Hopefully this incident will slow the flow of weapons to Jihadists in Syria and help bring and end to the conflict.