The ISIS Crisis: Mass Killings and Tatooine Training Camps

On Sunday, April 19th, 2015, elements aligning themselves with the Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya released yet another video depicting the gruesome killings of those they are calling Ethiopian Christians. It came packaged just how the ‘Boogeymen of the Middle East’ wanted it to be: with a masked, pistol-wielding spokesperson threatening fire-and-brimstone-like prophecies in a long, drawn-out statement. The main effort of his auditory assault focused on convincing the non-believers of the world that these men failed to not only convert to Islam from Christianity, but also failed to pay a ‘special tax’ as prescribed in accordance with their understanding of the Quran.

Two different prisoner video locations were edited together to bring the latest snuff film to 29 minutes in length. In the end, of course, both groups of prisoners were either gunned down in the desert or along a sunny coastal beach. The latter group endured the added torture of having a blade or hacksaw tearing apart the flesh from their very necks while they screamed, gagging on blood and seawater until dead.

The scene, like all the others ISIS loves to release for maximum shock value, is unfortunately nothing new. And therefore, sadly, the method offers little analytical value. But what is of interest is the video depicting the locations of both killings. The sunny locale is somewhere in the eastern Barka providence or the southwestern part of the Fazzen providence, which ends along the border of Niger and Algeria. What makes this so interesting is that there are scattered reports revealing that, not only are ISIS fighters in and around these border towns and cities, but they have extensive training camps and recruitment centers within them as well.