British hostage John Cantlie has appeared in a new Islamic State (IS) propaganda video in which he appears to be speaking from with the Syrian city of Kobane, near the Turkish border.
In an apparently scripted message, Cantlie says that the battle for the Kurdish town “is nearly over”, despite reports in the Western media that IS had suffered heavy losses and was in retreat after numerous US air strikes.
Appearing very gaunt in the video, the journalist describes two weapons drops from US aircraft that ended up in the hands of IS militants, and said that the Islamist group was now “mopping up” in Kobane, fighting door-to-door.
He goes on the claim that IS is in control of the eastern and southern sectors of the city, and that he had seen no YPG, PKK< or Peshmerga Kurdish fighters. It is unclear when the footage was filmed, but Cantlie references a number of articles in the Western media about the apparent losses suffered by IS in Kobane, the most recent by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent, which was published in 20 October. Since then, US air strikes have destroyed a IS command centre on the outskirts of the city, and Kurdish fighters have retaken a key hill overlooking the town.
The video follows another IS video of Cantlie published last week, in which the journalist criticised the UK and US stance on hostage negotiations, which was followed a few days later in an article in the New York Times that described the horrors faced by those kidnapped and held hostage by the Islamic State.
