Just when you thought ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) could not possibly develop more heinous ways of executing captives and prisoners, news out of the besieged city of Mosul, Iraq, reveals that a group of youths have been put to death in what amounts to nothing short of a chainsaw massacre. According to a source, nine Mosul youths were killed, all accused of belonging to an anti-ISIS resistance faction.

Iraqi News reported August 31 that nine youths were convicted in an Islamic State sharia court of being members of a resistance faction in the city. They were summarily sentenced to a public execution. The nine were then tied to a pole Wednesday and cut in two with a chainsaw by ISIS militants.

A source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Iraqi News, “The death sentence pronounced by ISIS sharia court stated that the men should be tied to an iron pole in the center of Tal Afar Square in Mosul and then sliced into two with an electric chainsaw.”

The news outlet went on to note that ISIS has executed thousands of the city’s citizens since taking over Mosul in June 2014. Although allegations and charges have varied, most of those killed by the extremists were convicted of collaborating with enemy forces.

The ISIS chainsaw killings come just a week after Islamic State extremists, after convicting six individuals of collaborating with the enemy in sharia court, killed the group by lowering the then still living men into boiling vats of tar. According to Inquisitr, the killings were also a public execution in Mosul, the carrying out of the sentence said to have been done to instill fear in the citizenry.

It is doubtful that, given ISIS’ barbaric and often horrendous killing methods (not to mention the regularity with which killings are carried out), there was a need to instill fear in the local population. At best, the most that could have been accomplished was to reinforce the Islamic State’s willingness to kill any and all who oppose its authority.

As Iraqi defense forces, supported by U.S. air power, and Peshmerga troops, with assistance from various militias and paramilitary factions, tighten the noose around Mosul, ISIS appears to have gotten more desperate. The Islamic State has gone so far as to kill citizens simply attempting to leave the city to get out from under ISIS’ draconian reign. As Inquisitr reported in July, ISIS burned alive a family of three, including a 2-year-old girl, that was simply trying to escape to the nearest town.

And the list of atrocities do not end there. The extremists have even turned on their own. In early August, Inquisitr reported on a mass grave being uncovered in Anbar Province in Iraq. Witnesses said that the 200 bodies recovered there were of ISIS fighters that had left their posts or retreated on the battlefield. All of them had been bound and placed inside vehicles, where they were left until they succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

But even worse are the atrocities witnesses have testified about before members of Parliament in the United Kingdom concerning children. As Inquisitr recounted, the list of heinous acts committed by ISIS members included rape of girls as young as 9 years old, crucifixions, and child slavery.

As unsettling as the details of each and every ISIS execution might be (and they continue to be nightmarishly creative), it should be noted that the dissolution of the Islamic State as an actual autonomous governing unit will not end its reign of terror. As its territory shrinks, ISIS has taken to the internet, its most effective recruiting tool, to deliver a different message to those who would join its ranks. Instead of joining forces with the militants in the Middle East who are now fighting a losing war, would-be ISIS members are encouraged to stay in their home countries and strike out against ISIS enemies there.

The upshot of the new ISIS agenda has been headlines about those who have sworn allegiance to ISIS attacking people with trucks and axes and such in Europe, and shooting and killing people in the U.S. There have been reported beheadings by lone wolf terrorists. Yet, thus far, the world has been spared immolations outside the Middle East. But for how long? And to make matters worse, now ISIS adds a chainsaw massacre to its approved methods of killing.

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