Dylan Stableford / Yahoo News & Shocking News – 2014-11-15 01:14:06
http://news.yahoo.com/isis-cantlie-kobani-video-202306073.html
Islamic State Video Appears to Show
British Hostage John Cantlie in Kobani
Dylan Stableford / Yahoo News
(October 27, 2014) — A new video * that appears to show Islamic State hostage John Cantlie in Kobani was released Monday, with the British captive warning that the battle for the Syrian border town is “coming to an end.”
“It is not an all-out battle now,” Cantlie says in the five-and-a-half-minute propaganda-style video. “It is nearly over.”
Aerial footage shot from a drone shows Kobani decimated from fighting between the Islamic State group and pro-Syrian forces and by air strikes on IS strongholds by a US-led coalition.
“For a month now the soldiers of the Islamic State have been besieging this key Kurdish city,” Cantlie says in the video, released on social media channels by the militant group. “And despite American air strikes which have cost nearly half a billion dollars in total, the mujahadeen have pushed deep into the city. They now control the eastern and southern sectors.
“Now the battle for Kobani is coming to an end,” Cantlie continues. “The mujahedeen are just mopping up now, street to street, and building to building.”
Earlier this month, the United Nations warned that it would be a “humanitarian catastrophe†if Kobani were to fall into the hands of the Islamic State. Last week, the militant group said it had seized an American airdrop of supplies and weapons near Kobani. US officials said they were looking into those claims.
“The mujahedeen are being resupplied by the hopeless United States Air Force who parachuted two crates of weapons and ammunition into the outstretched arms of the mujahedeen,†Cantlie says. “All I’ve see here inside the city of Kobani is mujahedeen. There are no YPG [Syrian Kurdistan army], PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] or peshmerga in sight. Just a large number of Islamic State mujahedeen, and they are definitely not on the run.â€
Turkey, which has been reluctant to join the US-led coalition, told Reuters on Monday that Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga were free to move through Turkey to Syria despite reports of a stalled agreement between Turkey and the YPG.
Cantlie, a war photographer and correspondent, was kidnapped in Syria with James Foley in November 2012. Foley was executed in August. Cantlie has appeared in at least five Islamic State propaganda videos since his capture.
* This link to Cantlie’s YouTube video leads to the following announcement:
“This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
EAW was able to locate an uncensored copy of Cantlie’s report on another YouTube site. The video, prominently labeled “Propaganda Video,” offers a critique of reports in the Western press. These reports about the situation inside Kobani appear not to be born out by Cantlie’s observations on the ground inside a city devastated by US airstrikes. In short, these press reports in the Western press can also be characterized as “propaganda videos.”
Here is the censored Cantie report — apparently from the streets of Kobani which, despite major stretches of devastation due to aerial bombardment — and Western media reports of widespread street-fighting, with the IS forces “on the run” — seems remarkably calm. Unlike the typical Western journalist reporting from a battlezone, Cantlie is not even wearing protective body armor.
ISIS Shows John Cantlie in Kobani
John Cantlie Is Used as a News Reporter – Propaganda Video
Shocking News
(October 28, 2014) — The Islamic State group released a video on Monday that appears to show British hostage John Cantlie in the Syrian border town of Kobani, the SITE Intelligence group announced on its website. The 5-minute video, which is titled “Inside Ayn al-Islam,” shows Cantlie walking in front of destroyed buildings in what appears to be the city of Kobani.
“Now the battle for Kobani is coming to an end,” Cantlie says. “The mujahideen are just mopping up now, street to street, and building to building,” he adds, referring to Islamic State fighters.
The video also shows aerial footage of Kobani, which was purportedly shot by an Islamic State drone. Militants of the Islamic State and Kurdish fighters have been battling for control of Kobani, a Kurdish town on the border between Syria and Turkey, for weeks.
Lend Me Your Ears. Episode 3
John Cantlie: War on Islamic State (October 14, 2014)
Lend Me Your Ears. Episode 4
John Cantlie: War on Islamic State (October 28, 2014)
Lend Me Your Ears. Episode 5
John Cantlie: War on Islamic State (October 28, 2014)
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