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

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’.