In the most famous case, there is an amateur video (along with a photo) taken of a foreign fighter decapitating and holding the severed head of a Serb POW up to the camera.
Before the subsequent video was taken, 2 Serb POW's (Momir Mitrović and Predrag Knežević) were captured, subjected to severe beatings and had their hands and feet bound together for hours on end.
[10] Since 2004 insurgents in South Thailand began to sow fear in attacks where men and women of the local Buddhist minority were beheaded.
[11] On 18 July 2005 two terrorists entered a teashop in South Thailand, shot Lek Pongpla, a Buddhist cloth vendor, beheaded him and left the head outside of the shop.
[20][21] According to Peter R. Neumann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College London, viral beheading videos are intended, and are at least somewhat effective, as a recruiting tool for jihad among both Western and Middle Eastern youth.
[24] Timothy R. Furnish, as assistant professor of Islamic History, contrasts the Saudi government executions, conforming to standards that minimize pain, with the non-state actors who have "chosen a slow, torturous sawing method to terrorize the Western audience.
"[25] Some analysts have argued that the beheadings of journalists and aid workers, along with other abductions and executions of independent observers in Syrian war zones, have forced international media to rely exclusively on reporting which is directly or indirectly influenced by rebel and opposition groups and in this way allowed the latter to dictate the coverage of events in areas under their control.