A video released Saturday shows what appears to be former members of the Pakistani Taliban pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in a presentation that concluded with the beheading of a captured Pakistani soldier.
Ex-Pakistani Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid and a handful of militants begin the video, which was recorded in an undisclosed wooded area, by pledging their unwavering support to the Islamic State.
Many of the militants in the video, including Shahid, who actually announced his support for the Islamic State back in October, claim to hail from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which raises questions about whether the Islamic State’s ranks are actually swelling with disaffected recruits from other terrorists groups.
The video concludes with a beheading.
“The SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based terrorism monitor, said the video was released by the Islamic State group on Twitter and jihadi forums,” the Associated Press reported.
“The video is sure to raise concerns about whether the Islamic State group has found support in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a region already awash with dozens of militant groups. Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan owe their allegiance to Mullah Omar, a cleric who has led the Taliban since the 1990s and hasn’t been publicly heard from for years,” the report added.
Although the area where the video was recorded has yet to be identified, it appears to be the same mountainous terrain located between Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area long familiar to Taliban militants.
“The militants frequently target Pakistani troops who have been carrying out missions in the country’s northwest. There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s military or government,” the AP reported.
The Islamic State group controls roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, and a U.S.-led coalition is targeting the group in airstrikes.
On Saturday, the U.S. military said it carried out 12 strikes on the group in Syria and three strikes in Iraq, the AP reported. Eleven of the coalition airstrikes in Syria targeted Islamic State group positions around the long-embattled town of Kobani.
