Bankers Canned for 'Team-Building' ISIS Video

If you're scratching your head trying to figure out how making a mock ISIS execution video is positive in any way, much less a valuable team-building exercise, you and HSBC management are on the same page. The bank has fired six UK employees for doing just that after they reportedly shot the video, then uploaded it to Instagram (it's since been deleted), reports the Guardian. HSBC reacted after the Sun published both the video and screenshots from it. "Once we saw this abhorrent video released @TheSun we took the decision to sack the individuals involved. We apologise for any offence," the bank's UK press office tweeted yesterday.

In the video, five men are shown wearing ski-mask-like balaclavas, while one man is dressed in an orange jumpsuit—much like those worn by Western hostages in the videos of their very-real executions at the hands of ISIS—and kneeling before them. One of the masked men holds what looks to be a coat hanger above their "prisoner" like a knife about to be used for a beheading, and someone says, "Allahu Akbar" and ululates before the group breaks out in laughter. A source tells the Sun: "It's shocking they would think this is funny." (Lots of others will be losing their jobs at HSBC, though not for the same reason.)