As if Americans needed another reason to rein in the out-of-control government in Washington, D.C., jihadist Syrian “rebels” backed and “vetted” by the Obama administration and neocons in Congress beheaded a 12-year-old boy. The barbaric beheading of the impoverished child was perpetrated on video that surfaced this week, with smiling jihadists funded and armed by the U.S. government shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they sever the child's head. According to the Obama-backed terror group behind the horror, the boy was suspected of being a “spy” for the government. The group, which received heavy military equipment and funding from Obama, claimed it was “investigating” the gruesome child beheading.

The latest atrocity perpetrated by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama's allegedly “moderate” Syrian rebels, one faction in the globalist-fueled civil war, follows years of similar horrors. Among other atrocities, Obama-backed jihadists have engaged in the attempted extermination of Syrian Christians and non-Sunni Muslim sects, the beheading of priests, slaughter of civilians, cannibalism directed at enemies, sexual slavery, the looting of churches and homes, wanton torture, crucifixions, terrorism, mass murder, and a seemingly never-ending stream of horrific war crimes. The globalist-backed jihadists are ostensibly working to overthrow Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, whom they view as an “apostate.”

The specific group behind the latest beheading of a child, which sparked a global outcry and headlines worldwide, is known as Nour al-Din al-Zenki. According to the U.K. Daily Mail and other sources, the U.S. government supplied the terror group with American tax dollars and even BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles, supposedly under the guise of fighting ISIS and the government. As many as 1,000 Zenki jihadists were reportedly on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, according to a McClatchy report published in December of 2014.

The outfit was part of the “well-vetted” jihadist alliance supported by Obama, neocon Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), neocon Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and other extremists in Washington, D.C., who never saw a war they did not want your children to go fight in. The terror group also worked closely with the self-styled “Free Syrian Army,” the jihadist umbrella group loudly promoted by Obama and his warmongering allies in Congress. It was also reportedly a regular ally of al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, known as Jabhat al-Nusra. Of course, top U.S. officials and globalists have actually been open in pushing for a U.S. government alliance with al-Qaeda.

According to the terrorist group, the 12-year-old boy from a poor family was originally arrested near Aleppo for serving as an alleged “spy” for al-Quds, a group that supports the Syrian regime. The accusation led the jihadist group to decapitate the boy using a small knife on the back of a pick-up truck. The video of the murder, which was posted online, has caused a worldwide uproar. It shows the apparently prepubescent boy laying down in the truck surrounded by five adult jihadists with huge smiles on their faces. In the beheading footage, one of the men can be seen severing boy's head with what appears to be a dull knife before holding the head up in triumph.

Beyond beheading children, the Obama-backed jihadists, including this specific Islamist group, have a long history of other war crimes in Syria. According to establishment-minded “human rights” group Amnesty International, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, also spelled Nour al-Dine Zinki, along with other allied “rebel” groups operating in and around Aleppo and Idleb, have been involved in serious war crimes for years. Among others listed: threatening journalists, torturing of kidnapping victims to extract phony confessions, summary killings, and much more.

Some victims of Nour al-Dine Zinki are even quoted in the Amnesty report. “When I refused to sign the confession paper the interrogator ordered the guard to torture me,” one victim of the group, a humanitarian worker identified only as “Halim,” was quoted as saying in the report. “The guard used the bisat al-rih [flying carpet] technique. He placed my hands above my head, and forced me to lift my legs in a perpendicular position. He then started beating me with cables on the soles of my feet. I couldn’t bear the pain so I signed the paper.”

As the beheading of the child and the Obama administration's links to it became a global scandal, the John Kerry-led State Department was forced to respond. “We strongly condemn this type of barbaric action, no matter what group is responsible,” the State Department was quoted as saying. “We do not comment on which groups are funded by the United States. We do, however, routinely vet the groups we work with and support and their human rights record figures prominently in that. We do not support groups that condone this sort of barbarity, period.”

State Department spokesperson John Kirby noted that “al-Zenki has identified some of its own members as being responsible for this appalling act.” He also said that, according to a statement, the terror group had supposedly arrested those allegedly responsible for the beheading. “We encourage al-Zenki to investigate the incident and expect all parties to comply with their obligations under the law of armed conflict,” Kirby was quoted as saying by the far-left Daily Beast. “Regardless of who may be culpable, we strongly condemn what appears to be the brutal murder of a minor.” Other reports suggested that Obama had recently stopped funding the terror group, reportedly less than a year ago.

As The New American has documented extensively, however, the Obama administration has been lawlessly showering funds and weapons on practically every faction involved in the conflict — including the Shia militias out of Iraq fighting alongside Assad's forces, and even the Russian military as it targets Obama-backed jihadists to prop up the Syrian regime. Other factions benefiting from American largess include multiple terror groups officially designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department. From communist Kurdish terror groups to Sunni Islamist terror groups, there appears to be no warring faction that has not at some point been receiving U.S. government aid — a major violation of federal law, which does not provide exceptions for government officials in criminalizing support for terror groups.

Indeed, despite all the hysteria surrounding the Islamic State, or ISIS, the Obama administration's supposed anti-ISIS coalition has been exposed by top Obama officials and government documents as having literally created, armed, funded, and trained the savage terrorist group. In a bizarre speech given at Harvard, while dishonestly downplaying the administration's illegal role in the crimes, Vice President Joe Biden explained openly how Obama's allies would not stop arming the terrorists who became ISIS. Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey even admitted in congressional testimony that Obama's allies were funding ISIS.

Even more alarming are 2012 official Pentagon documents showing that the Obama administration and its allies were plotting all along to support al-Qaeda and other terror groups in Syria. The goal, they said, was to create an Islamic State in Eastern Syria. Today the “Salafist principality,” as the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document referred to the intended regime, is better known to the world as ISIS. The document also provides conclusive evidence that the Obama administration was knowingly supporting al-Qaeda, which is a serious federal crime. Senior U.S. officials said they advised Obama not to support the terror groups but that they were ignored.

The New American has been reporting on all of this since the start of the globalist-fueled Syrian war, even while the “establishment” media was discrediting itself by touting Obama's non-existent “moderate rebels” and their alleged quest for “democracy.” Today, with 12-year-old children having their heads chopped off by Obama's CIA-funded rebels, the fruits of it are clear. In Libya, where Obama, citing a United Nations resolution, pursued a similar strategy of supporting terror, the results have been similar.

To prevent such horrors in the future, and to protect the American people from being implicated in them, Congress must reclaim its war powers from the executive branch. There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the White House to go around the world searching for foreign governments to destroy, terrorist groups to support, or any other such lunacy. America needs to follow the advice of the Founders and stop going abroad "in search of monsters to destroy." As history shows, it ends up creating many more monsters. It also puts blood on the hands of the American people. It is time for Congress to hold top administration officials accountable.

Photo of Syrian rebel from 2012: AP Images

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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