"The Beatles" was the nickname for an Islamic State terrorist group composed of four British militants. The group was named by their hostages after the English rock group The Beatles, who referred to the members as "John", "Paul", "George", and "Ringo".
The group carried out the 2014 beheadings in Iraq and Syria of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning. The group also held more than 20 Western hostages of ISIS in Western Raqqa, Syria. They were reportedly harsher than other ISIS guards, torturing captives with electroshock weapons and subjecting them to mock executions (including a crucifixion) and waterboarding.
In November 2015, one of the militants was killed and one was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey. Two were captured in early 2018, transferred to U.S. military custody,[1][2] and sentenced to life imprisonment in the U.S. in 2022.