Thomas Wictor

Until today, I’d never watched a Muslim beheading video. Today I watched two, one being A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross, the Islamic State murder of Egyptian Coptic Christians. I can report to you without any doubt whatsoever that the Christians were already dead when their heads were cut off. This post will contain gruesome images, but I’ve censored the injury sites, faces, and heads. If you choose to click the thumbs, you will see nothing horrific except for large amounts of blood.

I hadn’t planned on watching A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross because it didn’t occur to me that the Islamic State would fake this atrocity as well as the alleged burning alive of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Moath Youseff al-Kasasbeh.

Muslim beheading videos date back to the First Chechen War (December 11, 2023 to August 31, 2023), when Chechen separatists murdered captured Russian soldiers. The most famous was nineteen-year-old Private Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov, Third Motorized Mobile Group, Special Detachment 479, Federal Border Guard Service.

Taken prisoner on February 14, 1996, by Chechens disguised as an ambulance crew, he was tortured unceasingly until May 23, 1996, when he was beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam and remove his Russian Orthodox cross. On August 20, 2002, he was canonized as a martyred saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Doing the research required to write posts debunking Islamist propaganda, it was inevitable that I stumble across screen grabs from beheading videos, but I didn’t see the need to watch such films. I know what kind of enemy we’re fighting, and I’ve seen murder firsthand. It’s not necessary to persuade me that all Muslim jihadists need to be killed.

A few days ago, someone sent me a link to this story.

ISIS’ Army of 7-footers? Experts say Video of Copt Beheadings Manipulated

Video of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being marched along a Libyan beach before being beheaded by black-clad members of ISIS is hard for any civilized person to watch, but experts who made it through the sickening, five-minute clip told FoxNews.com Friday they came to the same conclusion: The footage was faked.

No one holds out hope the victims, mostly poor fishermen who had gone to Libya to scratch out a living, are still alive. But several anomalies in the video, which was posted online Feb. 15, indicated to trained eyes that at least some of the production was done on “green screen” with background added later, perhaps to disguise the real location of the atrocity…

“The Islamic State’s manipulation of their high-production videos has become commonplace,” said Veryan Khan, editorial director of the Florida-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium. The murders likely took place in a studio, and the background image shown was likely from another location, the Bay in Sirte, a part of the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, according to Khan. There are several technical mistakes in the video that show it was manipulated, she said.

[T]he jihadists featured in the film look to be more than 7 feet tall, towering as much as two feet above their victims…

Hollywood horror film director Mary Lambert, who among her many film credits directed Pet Cemetery, analyzed the film for FoxNews.com and quickly concluded Khan was correct.

A high-resolution version of the video is here. I recommend you not watch it because it shows men having their heads cut off. However, they were already dead at the time.

The film experts are absolutely right. Much of this is utterly fake. First, the giant terrorists and their victims.

When one Christian “steps over a rock,” his bare foot disappears (red arrow).

As the giants continue their march, the abysmal quality of the superimposition is seen in the form of ghostly afterimages on the men in the middle and flares of color on the others.

There’s no doubt that the beach scenes are faked. What also struck me immediately is the lack of blood during the beheadings. I’d never seen a living person beheaded, so I had to find video. The following three screen grabs are from an Islamic State mass murder in Syria. I’ve censored the bodies except for that of the man killed on camera. You will see no injuries, faces, or heads.

Yes, there’s a place called Best Gore, where benumbed former humans go to try and feel something. I had to open an account in order to see the video. Note the amount of blood on the ground.

After the victim is beheaded, he loses at least a quarter of his blood volume.

A side-by-side comparison of the area at the murderer’s feet shows how much blood was instantly deposited on the dirt.

When a person is decapitated, his or her heart keeps on beating for several seconds or even minutes. The blood is pumped out.

A man recently decapitated a woman on the street in China. What looks like a shadow on the left is her blood. I’ve censored the upper half of her body.

The murderer used a knife, exactly like the Muslim terrorists in A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross.

The imperial Chinese conducted public executions with enormous swords. This photo from 1905 depicts a criminal’s blood shooting high into the air after his head is cut off. I’ve censored the injury site and the falling head.

When a person has his or head head cut off—either instantly or slowly—the heart will continue pumping. That’s biology. A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross has almost no blood in it. As the murderers begin to cut the Christians’ necks, the men don’t react, and very little blood falls to the sand. The Christians were obviously already dead.

The man on the right has been decapitated, while the man on the left is about two-thirds through the process. I’ve censored the injuries, faces, and heads.

There’s almost no blood on the sand or on the murderers’ hands. The victims’ hearts had stopped beating long before the men were beheaded.

Again, I don’t recommend you watch the video, but it shows the leader of the group cutting off the head of a black man. Although the man’s spinal column is severed, he winces, proving that the gaping wound you see is computer graphic imagery (CGI). The victim is wincing because the leader is poking his fingers into the man’s eyes. I won’t post the screen grab, but at 3:35 there’s a glitch in the CGI, and you can see that the wound and the knife are animated. The internal structure of the victims’ neck was created by someone with no knowledge of anatomy.

After he cuts off the man’s head, the leader has almost no blood on his left hand, in which he held the knife.

He has no blood on his sleeves, trousers, jacket, and right hand. Impossible.

People will very reasonably ask why the Islamic State faked this video. The answer is that they needed absolute control over their victims. None of the Christians even struggled. There’s a completely unnatural calm to the entire proceedings. It reeks of fraudulence. I watched the “death scenes” fifteen times, and I could detect no physical reactions from the Christians as they were killed. The murderers gripped them by the face to make it appear that some were grimacing, but their mouths remained immobile.

The only man who showed slight discomfort was the one beheaded by the leader in the camouflage uniform. I think they filmed his fake murder first, in order to have at least one reaction. However, the wound is clearly not real. There’s not enough blood, the blood present is as thick as maple syrup, and the man would’ve been dead long before he winced.

If you do watch the video, you’ll see that without question the Christians were killed before they were beheaded, in order to assure the passivity they show. The lack of blood can be explained in no other way. Islamic State videos depict their victims accepting their just punishment. This symbolism means a lot to the prospective terrorist recruits. It’s self-protective rationalization of murder.

In memory of Hani Abdel Messihah, Yousef Shoukry, Towadros Yousef, Maged Suleiman Shahata, Milad Makeen Zaky, Abanub Ayad Atiya, Kirollos Shokry Fawzy (Kirollos Bashree Fawzy), Bishoy Astafanus Kamel, Malak Ibrahim Sinweet, Girgis Milad Sinweet, Mina Fayez Aziz, Samuel Alham Wilson, Samuel Astafanus Kamel, Ezat Bishri Naseef, Loqa Nagaty Anees, Munir Gaber Adly, Esam Badir Samir, Malak Farag Abram, Sameh Salah (Sameh Salah Farug), Girgis Sameer Maglee, and Unknown.

May Saint Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov bring them peace.

Update

To clarify, the Chechen leader questioning Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov in the painting is wearing a Muslim prayer cap called a tagiya or taqiyah. It comes in many shapes and sizes. Some look like Jewish yarmulkes.

This one is from Tukmenistan.