The horror show into which the Middle East has transformed over the last four years continues — and expands. ISIS released a videotape today showing not one beheading of a hostage, but the simultaneous beheadings of 21 Christian hostages. The beheadings took place not in Syria or Iraq, but in Libya:

The terrorists known as ISIS released a video on Sunday that seems to show the militant group beheading 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya.

The Egyptians, dressed in orange jump suits, were beheaded after being forced down on the ground on a beach. An early caption in the video says the location is “Wilayat Tarabulus by the Mediterranean Sea,” which suggests that it was filmed near Tripoli.

Each of the victims, who are all male, is paired with a masked, knife-wielding terrorist and, after a brief statement by the ISIS leader, they are all beheaded.

Don’t expect to the see the video here, which was titled in part “A Message Signed in Blood.” The AP describes it so that the rest of us can pass on watching ISIS propaganda:

The video, released late Sunday night, shows several men in orange jumpsuits being led along a beach, each accompanied by a masked militant. The men are made to kneel and one militant addresses the camera in English before the men are simultaneously beheaded.

ISIS seems like an atrocity-junkie terrorist group, always attempting to outdo itself in savagery for its missives to the West. They’ve continually attempted to ramp up the brutality in its videos towards their bound hostages, amplifying their cowardice and cruelty. What they hope to accomplish is fright and flight, but what they’re likelier to get is more opposition and bigger headaches.

Other than the butchery of peaceful Egyptian Copts, the most troublesome geopolitical aspect of this video is the location of the atrocities. Four years ago, this would have been impossible, as the fairly brutal Qaddafi regime had kept the terror networks underground. Thanks to the failed state that followed the war launched by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton against Moammar Qaddafi, ISIS has apparently won the loyalties of some of the militias that had been associated with al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. This shows once again why the West shouldn’t have gone to war in Libya without a massive ground force to fill the vacuum after the fall of the Qaddafi regime — and why it will take a large army to contain and destroy ISIS. In fact, this suggests that one large army may no longer be enough.

Update: I forgot to include the link to the first report, which I’ve corrected above. One commenter scolds me for not including the word Islam in the post, but we’ve been writing about ISIS for long enough for readers to know it stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. I was trying to get a thread started as soon as possible after reading the news, so I didn’t spell it out — but then again, I hardly thought it was necessary.

Update: (Jazz) You might think these idiots would learn their lesson from what happened with Jordan, but Egypt is responding in pretty much the same way.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Sunday that Egypt reserved the right to respond in a way it sees fit to the Islamic State’s beheading of 21 Egyptians in neighboring Libya.

Sisi warned Cairo would choose the “necessary means and timing to avenge the criminal killings”. He was speaking on national television hours after Islamic State released a video purportedly showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya.

I know I’ve been an advocate for American action, but if these cretins tick off enough countries over there we might not need to bother.