British hostage John Cantlie used as video guide to Kobani by Islamic State
In Islamic State video, John Cantlie gives tour of Syrian city and slams Western coverage of battle
In a remarkable new video released by Islamic State militants, British hostage John Cantlie gives a tour of the Syrian city of Kobani and denounces Western coverage of the fighting in the city.
Cantlie, a photographer and journalist taken hostage in late 2012, has appeared in a number of propaganda videos for Islamic State, usually in an orange jumpsuit in front of a plain black screen. However, the new video, released on Monday via social media accounts linked to Islamic State, is more professional. Notably, it appears to show Cantlie walking outside and animatedly discussing recent events.
The video also takes aim at a different target. Although previous videos appeared designed to criticise Western military action against Islamic State, this time the main target appears to be Western media and their coverage of the situation in Kobani, where Islamic State has battled Kurdish militias for control.
The video begins with an aerial shot of Kobani purportedly shot by a "drone of the Islamic State army", before apparently showing Cantlie walking in what he describes as the "so-called PKK safe zone." PKK refers to the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Cantlie says the area is now controlled by Islamic State, and he goes on to call Western media's reporting on Kobane inaccurate.
He singles out reporting by the International Business Times, the BBC and British daily 's Patrick Cockburn. Cantlie argues no Western reporters are in the city and thus are receiving their news only from "Kurdish commanders and White House press secretaries".
The video apes the Western media it criticises, beginning with a logo "Inside 'Ayn al Islam'" - a reference to what Islamic State calls Kobani - and uses relatively sophisticated graphics.
The video says that "good old John Kerry" - the US Secretary of State - has been criticising "Kurd-hating Turkish President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan". Cantlie also makes reference to the cost of American air strikes in Kobani ("almost half a billion dollars in total") and a US air drop that accidentally landed in the hands of Islamic State.
"The mujahideen is now being resupplied, by the hopeless US Air Force, who parachuted two crates of weapons and ammunition straight into the outstretched arms of the mujahideen," he says. Cantlie says that media reports are wrong and that fighting in Kobani is almost over. "Urban warfare is about as nasty and as tough as it gets," Cantlie says, "and it's something of a specialty of the mujahideen."
Cantlie was taken hostage by Islamic State in 2012, at the same time as American journalist James Foley, the first hostage whose execution was filmed and shared on the internet. Like Foley, it was the second time Cantlie had been taken hostage: he had been freed by Syrian Free Army troops earlier in 2012.
His kidnapping has created anguish for his family. His sister recently called for the US to "reinitiate direct contact" with his captors, while his father died last week, days after filming a video asking for the release of his son.
Turkey to let Iraqi Kurds cross border on their way to fight I.S. in Syria
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters are travelling to Turkey to support militia forces defending the Syrian border town of Kobani from the Islamic State group in an unprecedented deployment.
Military trucks loaded with weapons left from a base northeast of the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, Irbil, bound for the besieged town on the Turkish frontier. More than three dozen vehicles carrying 80 fighters, machineguns and artillery were to travel overland to Kobani, and would cross the border into Turkey to get there, a Kurdish officer said.
The convoy included two towed artillery pieces and a number of covered trucks, some of them carrying rocket launchers.
Another 72 peshmerga fighters were to fly to Turkey early today.
Kobani's Kurdish defenders have been waiting for days for the arrival of the peshmerga fighters, after Turkey last week said it would allow them to traverse its territory to enter the town.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said there would no problem for the peshmerga to cross into Kobani, dismissing reports of delays imposed by Ankara.
"There is now no political problem. There is no problem in the way of them crossing. They can cross at any moment," Cavusoglu was quoted as saying.
Local Kurdish militia have been holding out against an Islamic State offensive for weeks and the town has become an important symbol in the international battle against IS.
The fighting continued yesterday, with black smoke rising over the Turkish border town of Mursitpinar as the jihadists inside Syria set fire to tyres in a bid to prevent air strikes.
The extremists seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq earlier this year, declaring an Islamic "caliphate" and committing widespread atrocities.
