Video of a young boy being beheaded in Syria draws attention to US funding and support of rebel groups

This week a video surfaced of a young boy (10 to 14 years old) that was beheaded by Syrian rebels. His alleged crime? Being a fighter for Liwa Al Quds (Al-Quds Brigade) and supporting the Assad regime. The Daily Beast recently published an article highlighting the Harakat Nour al-Din al Zenki or the Zenki movement and the fact that they have received US funding and weapons from the CIA. However, by 2015, the financing and support stopped due to the group’s “poor performance” in the fight against ISIS. BBC stated that the men in the video were “handed over to a judicial committee” following the boy’s execution.

The gruesome videotaped murder of a child drew outrage on social media and the promise of an inquiry from the group’s leadership, which has previously received U.S.-made weapons and American funding. The group no longer gets such backing. But it’s also renewed questions about which rebels the American government has supported in Syria’s ongoing civil war.

“Even if they no longer get U.S. aid, it still shows the moral pitfalls of what we’re trying to do in Syria,” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Daily Beast.

There are two clips from the unsavory events. One shows five militants surrounding the boy. In the second, one of them stands over him on the truck and cuts the boy’s head off with a dull knife, raising it over his head.

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Details conflict about which groups, exactly, comprise the “moderate” Syrian rebels funded by the U.S.-led coalition, but critics have long warned that fluid dynamics and shifting allegiances on the ground make it difficult to predict which groups will be aligned with U.S. interests.

Yet the Zenki movement was on the white list as recently as December 2014. A McClatchy report on the U.S.’s decision to stop payment and suspend delivery of weapons to rebel factions noted that the crackdown would not affect the Zenki movement and Harakat Hazm in Aleppo. As many as 1000 Zenki fighters were on the CIA payroll, according to the article.

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A field commander for one of the rebel factions told McClatchy at the time that fighters were paid $150 a month, and that the aid cutoff was in response to gains by the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. The Islamic extremists of Nusra reportedly seized American weapons from the U.S.-backed groups. -The Daily Beast

The leadership of the Zenki movement issued this statement after the video was released.

al Zenki movement issues a statement about the beheading crime. The statement and a summary in English in the images pic.twitter.com/dfEwPbzGtk

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— Ibrahim al-Assil (@iAssil) July 19, 2016

The video highlights two main issues: the US funding Syrian rebels and using children as soldiers. Was it wrong for the rebels to kill the boy in such a manner?-Of course. The boy in the video had an IV and a bandage on his abdomen, which suggests he was injured at the time of his death. Should the US funding for the group be examined?- Yes. Picking a side to support and the fund is not a simple black-and-white situation because individuals may shift alliances based on who can provide the biggest paycheck at that moment in time. Some of the fighters that the US paid have reportedly moved on to other groups to provide for their families. Aiding in groups like this is always a gamble because you have to be willing to accept the good and the bad that comes with the deal. The other forces only complicate this at work in the region.