ISIS beheading footage shared with false claim it shows Pakistanis killed in Saudi Arabia

(Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised. Logically Facts has refrained from including links to the video due to its disturbing nature.)

What is the claim?

A two-minute video of men covered in black clothes beheading people in orange jumpsuits is being shared to claim that the video shows the beheading of Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia. 

A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared the video with the claim, in Hindi, "Seven Pakistanis raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia. The next day, they arrested all of them and presented them in court. The court ordered them to be beheaded and to release the video for others to see. This is called justice. Don't you think that such a law is also desperately needed in today's environment in India." The post had around 200,000 views and 1,300 reposts at the time of writing. 

Screenshot of the viral social media post (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is not from Saudi Arabia. It shows an ISIS beheading in 2015.

What did we find?

We observed that at the 00:20 second mark, the viral video has a logo in the top-right corner. We compared this with the Islamic State (ISIS) logo and found it to be similar.

Comparison between the viral video and the original logo (Source: X/Directorate of the National Intelligence, U.S.)

When we ran the key frames of the video through a reverse image search, we came across media reports attributing the beheading to the Islamic State (ISIS).

A report dated September 30, 2015, by Al-Alam, an Iranian state-owned media house, carried the same videos and photos from the incident. It reports that "The ISIS terrorist group released a video of the crime of executing 16 Iraqi youths under the pretext of spying for the Peshmerga forces." The report, however, did not provide the date on which the incident may have occurred.

Another report by Khabar Online, an independent news agency in Iran, also dated September 30, 2015, corroborates these details.

The Peshmerga (army) forces are the military soldiers of the Kurdish Autonomous region in Iraq, working under the aegis of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.

There have been multiple reports about ISIS claiming to have executed or beheaded Peshmerga soldiers over the years. 

We looked for news reports about Saudi Arabia recently beheading Pakistani nationals on charges of raping a girl. However, we could not find any credible reports to that effect.

Saudi Arabia has, over the years, executed Pakistani nationals for various crimes, such as murder and drug trafficking. However, this video is not one of those executions.

The verdict

A 2015 video of the execution of Peshmerga soldiers by ISIS is being shared with the false claim it shows the beheading of Pakistani nationals by Saudi Arabia.