Islamic State video shows boy shooting 'spy' in forehead

Islamic State has released a new video in which a young boy appears to shoot a 19-year-old man accused of being an Israeli spy.

Muhammad Said Ismail Musallam, an Israeli-Arab from East Jerusalem, is seen wearing an orange jump suit, kneeling in front of the boy, who looks no older than 12.The boy shoots him once in the forehead with a pistol, before shouting "Allahu akbar" and firing at his body four more times as he lies on the ground.According to Israeli officials, Musallam travelled to Syria in October 2014. Last month, a jihadist online magazine claimed he had confessed to spying for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, but his father insisted he had gone to fight for IS."He is not a spy, he went over on his own – they recruited him on the internet," his father, Said, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "I don't know what they said to him or how they got into his head, but he is not connected with Mossad, the Shin Bet security services or anyone else."The family said a man had approached them in January to say Musallam had been caught trying to flee to Turkey and was in prison in Syria for trying to leave IS.In the video, the young boy is accompanied by an older, French-speaking militant who makes threats against Jews in France.The footage was released on IS social media alongside photographs of three men being beheaded, two for homosexuality and the third for blasphemy.

It comes as Iraqi troops and Shia militias seized large parts of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown north of Baghdad, which holds huge strategic value for both sides. If IS fighters are forced to retreat, it will become the first big city to come back under the government's control since the militants overran almost a third of the country last summer.

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