The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as a US spy. Then he hacks off the captive's head to cries of "God is great!" and hoists it in triumph by the hair.
A video circulating in Pakistan records the grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.
A reporter confirmed Nabi's identity by visiting his family in Kili Faqiran, their remote village in southwestern Pakistan.
The video appeared authentic and was unprecedented in jihadist propaganda because of the youth of the executioner.
Captions mentioned Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's current top commander in southern Afghanistan, although he did not appear in the video. The soundtrack featured songs praising Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and "Sheikh Osama" -- an apparent reference to Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The footage showed Nabi making what was described as a confession, being blindfolded with a checkered scarf.
"He is an American spy. Those who do this kind of thing will get this kind of fate," said his baby-faced executioner, who was not identified.
A continuous two-and-a-half minute shot then showed the victim lying on his side on a patch of rubble-strewn ground. A man held Nabi by his beard while the boy, wearing a camouflage military jacket and oversized white sneakers, cut into the throat. Other men and boys called out "Allahu akbar!" -- "God is great!" -- as blood spurted from the wound.
The film, overlain with jihadi songs, then showed the boy hacking and slashing at the man's neck until the head was severed.
A Pashto-language voiceover in the video identified Nabi and his home village of Kili Faqiran in Baluchistan Province, which lies about two hours' drive from the Afghan border.
A reporter went to the village, and Nabi's distraught and angry father, Ghulam Sakhi, confirmed his son's identity from a still picture made from the footage. He said neighbors had told him the video is available at the village bazaar, but he had no wish to see it.
Sakhi said his son had been a loyal Taliban member who fought in Afghanistan and sheltered the hardline Afghan group's leaders in the family's mud-walled compound.
He blamed the Taliban and wants to avenge his son's death.
"The Taliban are not mujahidin. They are not fighting for the cause of Islam," the 70-year-old said. "If I got my hands on them I would kill them and even tear their flesh with my own teeth."
Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said he had no information about Nabi or the video. None of the group's commanders he contacted could confirm the execution, he said.
The method of Nabi's death was not unusual for Pakistan's tribal regions. Suspected informers are regularly found beheaded and dumped along the side of the road in the mountainous regions along the Afghan border, where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants find sanctuary.
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