On Paris Ringleader's Phone, Scenes of Gore

Yesterday brought a report that Reuters obtained Fatwa Number 68, a document that justifies ISIS' harvesting of organs from living captives, even if the brutal move results in death. Reuters wasn't the only news service to provide a gory new window into the terror group. NBC News has spoken with anti-ISIS activists who shared with the network about 50 photos (including, yes, selfies) and video clips that they say were on the phone belonging to the dead leader of the Paris terror attacks. They were reportedly taken from Abdelhamid Abaaoud's cellphone early last year in Syria, though there is no explanation given of how that was achieved beyond saying they "secretly got their hands on Abaaoud's material."

One of the activists explains how the group only realized what it had in the wake of the Paris attacks, when "some of the pictures were released about the ringleader. We realized that we have some of these videos on file [from] more than a year ago. It was a total coincidence." Some photos are particularly gruesome (a beheaded body, for instance), while others more mundane: One was apparently taken in a spa and shows a shelf of beauty products. NBC News gives the most ink to one "haunting" clip, which shows a number of dead men. Abaaoud zooms in on one. "Look at his face! His face has been crushed," a militant says off-camera. (More Abdelhamid Abaaoud stories.)