ISIS barbarians chop off a thief's hand with a meat cleaver in front of baying crowd

This is the sickening moment ISIS thugs maimed a 'thief' for life by chopping off his hand with a cleaver while a baying crowd watched on. The man was blindfolded and dragged to a square in the terror group's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria before being forced in to a seat while his arm was held to a wooden table.

Gruesome pictures show a balaclava-wearing jihadi positioning a cleaver on the man's wrist and preparing to strike down on the weapon with a large metal bar.

Seconds later, another man rushes in to bandage the alleged thief's arm. A large crowd had gathered to watch the brutal punishment. It is not the first time ISIS have carried out a public amputations. Similar pictures emerged of a man having his hand chopped off in early June in another Syrian city.

In February, a man had his hand hacked off in Raqqa in what was described as the 'implementation of the punishment of a thief from Raqqa city'.

Cutting off the right hand as a punishment for theft is a strict interpretation of Sharia law, carried out by ISIS, Saudi Arabia and Iran. It comes as ISIS, losing territory and on the retreat in Iraq and Syria, claimed credit for a surge in global attacks this summer, most of them in France and Germany.

The wave of attacks followed a call to strike against the West during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in June and July, in an apparent shift in strategy by the jihadist group, which has been hammered by two years of U.S.-led coalition air strikes and ground advances by local forces.

Instead of urging supporters to travel to its self-proclaimed caliphate, it encouraged them to act locally using any means available. 'If the tyrants close the door of migration in your faces, then open the door of jihad in theirs and turn their actions against them,' said an audio clip purportedly from spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, referring to Western governments' efforts to keep foreign fighters from travelling to the join the group.

In the last 18 months, the group has been pushed off a quarter of the lands it seized in Iraq and Syria in 2014, research firm IHS said this month; other estimates put losses closer to half.

Iraqi authorities have pledged to retake Mosul - the largest city still under the group's control - later this year, but the militants will likely maintain safe havens in remote desert areas and revert to more traditional insurgent techniques.

Islamic State's defeat is a longer way off in Syria, and it has established footholds in pockets of lawlessness or instability from Libya to Afghanistan to the Philippines.- Daily Mail