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Disturbing news: The newest ISIS executioner may be a 10-year-old boy.

Trigger warning: This post deals with themes relating to death and violence. It may be distressing for some readers.

While most 10-year-olds are learning their times tables, this boy may be executing prisoners on behalf of the Islamic State.

The extremist group has demonstrated a new level of brutality in its latest propaganda video — by having a child purportedly execute one of its captives.

A newly released high-definition short film is of expert quality, and appears to shows the boy shooting a teenaged ISIS captive with a hand gun at point-blank range.

The 10-year-old ISIS soldier shown in the terrorist group’s latest propaganda clip.

In the film — which News Corp reports has been circulated via Twitter and blogs — the boy is accompanied by an older French-speaking soldier, who warns against ‘international spies’. The victim of the execution is believed to be Israeli recruit by the name of Muhammad Said Ismail Musallam, who is accused of being a spy for his national security forces — although Musallam’s parents insist he was not a spy, and must have joined the jihadist militants of his own will.

Related content: Should we be watching barbaric propaganda videos?

 

In the video, Musallam ‘confesses’ to those allegations at gunpoint, before a close-up shot shows four shots being fired.

It is unclear whether the boy in the video actually pulls the trigger, however: News Corp reports the finger on the trigger does not look like that of a child.

Child soldiers featured in previous ISIS propaganda films.

The unidentified boy in the horrifying video is also seen celebrating the captive’s death with a joyful cry of “Allahu Akbar”.

He is just one of an army of ISIS child recruits: As The Guardian reports, the extremist group has been enlisting children from all over the world raised as the next generation of jihadi soldiers in special ISIS training camps.

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Related content: Who is the Australian school boy who ran away to join ISIS?

ISIS even pays their child soldiers a wage, and reportedly bribes parents to send their children to Islamic State-run schools.

Babies — sometimes just months old — have also been depicted in propaganda clips holding guns and donning the Islamic State flag.

Related content: The photos of these ‘babies of ISIS’ are devastating.

“Those under 15 go to sharia camp to learn about their creed and religion,” an ISIS press officer in Raqqa told Vice News.

“Those over 16, they can attend the military camp … Those over 16 and who were previously enrolled in the camps can participate in military operations.”

ISIS considers philosophy, science, history, art and sport to be incompatible with Islam, and therefore trains students in religion and military practice.

The terrifying goal of this training is to create a single-minded state to conquer those who do not share the same beliefs.

Jake Bilardi is 18, and fled his Melbourne home to fight with the Islamic State.

The most recent video follows reports that an Australian teenager from Melbourne ran away to join the Islamic State.

The young man, 18-year-old Jake Bilardi, is understood to have fled Australia last year after dropping out of high school. He has since appeared posing alongside Islamic State militants in photos circulated on social media, and is believed to have sent threatening tweets to the Australian Federal Police.

Bilardi is just one of more than a hundred Australians believed to have joined the extremist militant cause.