‘Russian Spies’ Executed by ISIS Boy in Syria

Former Russian FSB Agent Executed in Video

A new video from ISIS shows a young boy of indeterminate age executing a pair of “Russian spies” who the group claimed to have captured, and who were interrogated on the video.

One of the men confirmed he previously had worked for Russia’s FSB security agency, and was told to collect information abut ISIS. The other was a Kazakh citizen who also claimed to have been recruited to spy on ISIS.

Such video confessions are common in the Middle East, and are often coerced. There was no further information on either of the men, though ISIS did claim that one of them had killed an ISIS fighter.

Though ISIS videos often feature children, this is the first time a child was seen to have carried out an execution in one of the videos.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.