by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - A translation from a 56-second video released by the Amaq ISIS news outlet showing the beheading and execution of 11 Christians in Nigeria over the Christmas holiday was provided by the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group in recent days.
Apparently, the Islamic State West Africa Province, which recently declared its allegiance to ISIS, planned the attack as a reprisal for US killings of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Bagdhdadi and his spokesman, Sheikh Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, in two separate military operations.
“This message is to the Christians in the world,” says a man in the video, according to the recent translation. “Those who you see in front of us are Christians, and we will shed their blood as revenge for the two dignified sheikhs, the caliph of the Muslims, and the spokesman for the Islamic State."
Statistics from the Britain-based Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust and a Nigerian civil society group point to 3,400 Christians having been killed in the West African country over the last two years alone.