Isis in Libya: Jihadists take group of six-year-old children to watch beheading of hostage

Libyan media reports say children were told to gather round the body

Images posted to social media from Derna showed masked militants executing hostage Abdulnabi al-Shurgawi

The Isis militant group executed a captive postal worker and displayed his head before a group of children as young as six.

Images shared by supporters of Isis in Libya showed a man in an orange jumpsuit being led out and murdered by masked executioners.

The captive, identified by the Libyan Herald as army volunteer Abdulnabi al-Shargawi, was reportedly captured while manning a government checkpoint at Ras al Helal and convicted by an Isis court of "apostasy".

The incident reportedly took place outside a mosque in the Isis-controlled city of Derna, which was seized by militants in October last year. Previous executions have also been pictured outside the same building by Isis supporters.

And in graphic images of the killing, an Isis militant can be seen standing over Shurgawi's remains as a small group of children watch on from a couple of yards away.

According to the Herald, the children as young as six and seven "were taken to see the execution at Derna’s Ateeq Mosque".

The images have prompted anger among social media users in Libya, who circulated a cartoon satirising the barbaric execution with the caption: "Derna, and the future of its children."

Derna is an eastern port city located on the Mediterranean, and represents the sort of Isis stronghold which the EU may be faced with if it intervenes militarily in the ongoing migrant crisis.

Isis has made gains recently in Libya to match its advances in Syria and Iraq - including the capture of a key air base in the centre of the country.