ISIS forced our son to say he was a Mossad spy, family of slain Israeli Arab says

The family of Muhammad Musallam mourn as they hear initial reports of their son's demise.

By REUTERS
Family mourns Israeli Arab teenager purportedly executed by ISIS
A Israeli Arab teenager purportedly killed by Islamic State militants was not a spy for Israel's intelligence service, his parents said on Tuesday.
A video published by the group's Furqan media outlet appeared to show 19-year-old Muhammad Musallam sitting in a room wearing an orange jumpsuit, talking about how he had been recruited and trained by Mossad. He said his father and elder brother had encouraged him.
After that, it showed Musallam being escorted to a field and then purportedly shot in the head by a boy, described by an older, French-speaking fighter as one of the "cubs of the caliphate".
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the footage, which also appeared on Twitter feeds used by Islamic State supporters.
Musallam's parents wept at their home in east Jerusalem when they learned of his death, and accused the militants of forcing their son to say he was a spy before killing him just for show.
"They took him as a victim, only to show the world, so the world would be afraid of them," Said Musallam, father of Muhammad Musallam, told Reuters, adding that a month ago his son had gone missing while on a tourist trip to Turkey.
"Islamic State captured him on the Turkish borders while he was trying to come home, because he got worried when he knew that his mom was sick, and (IS) put him in jail and they hit him and made him make confessions, and of course these confessions that will appear (in video). Mohammad was told by them to say that he worked for the Israelis. Mohammad didn't say so himself. Any honourable person would be ready to get executed and not say such words. But they pushed Mohammad to saying this," his father said.
Israeli security officials said they were aware of the video but could not confirm that it was authentic.
Clutching her son's photograph, Um Ahmad told reporters: "A spy of 19? How is that possible? Why would he have gone there if he were a spy?"
The video, which was about 13 minutes long, showed Musallam on his knees as he listened to the older fighter delivering the verdict in French.
Then the boy, wearing a military uniform and armed with a pistol, stands face to face with Musallam and appears to fire one bullet into his forehead. After Musallam collapsed, the child purportedly shot him three more times and chanted "Allahu Akbar!" (God is greatest).
In the video, Musallam repeated what he had said last month in an interview published by the group's English language magazine Dabiq, in which he said he had joined Islamic State to report to the Israelis on weapons caches, bases and Palestinian recruits.
An Israeli security official had said Musallam went to Syria to fight for Islamic State in October last year.


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