IS Releases Gruesome Full-Length Film

The propaganda war being waged by Islamic State militants has intensified, with the release of a full-length documentary-style film entitled Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun.

The 55-minute video uploaded to the internet celebrates the campaign in Iraq and Syria and shows captured Syrian soldiers digging their own graves before being shot dead.

A masked IS fighter with a North American accent addresses the camera and claims to be in a captured army base.

"We're here with the soldiers of Bashar, you can see them now digging their own graves where they were stationed," he says.

As the men work with spades, the anonymous spokesman says: "This is the end they face."

The film then cuts to a shot of the Syrian soldiers kneeling down in a line, the masked man again addresses the camera and says: "The flames of war are only beginning to intensify ... the fighting has just begun."

He then joins other IS fighters in shooting the captured men in the back of the head, before they each roll forward and fall into the trench.

The heavily edited film - which emerged after dozens of Turkish hostages seized by IS militants were freed - includes special effects, graphics, slow-motion replays and archive clips of speeches by US President Barack Obama and former president George W Bush.

Previous hostage videos, which have appeared to show the beheading of two Americans and British aid worker David Haines, have been shorter and less elaborate productions.

The video showing British photojournalist John Cantlie that was released on Thursday was a simpler production but came with a more complex message.

Mr Cantlie, who was first captured in 2012, appeared sat at a table and hinted he would appear in future "programmes."

In the latest full-length video, the logo of Al Hayat Media, which is a media arm of Islamic State, features in the top right corner.

It concludes with an on-screen message that is also read aloud, saying "the sons of Islam have prepared themselves for this day, so wait and see, for we too are also going to wait and see".